A Korean Wedding

I went to a Korean wedding today! One of my friends from work, Ceilia, got married to "her skinny man" (my nickname for him.) Everyone from the school was invited and in attendance, and we all ate dinner together after the ceremony, so it was quite a fun morning! When we arrived, we were directed to a tiny room where the bride sat perched like a frosted white cupcake on a settee, and people could take pictures of her, or have their picture taken with her. Poor thing, she looked so nervous! I did not envy her. People in the wedding hall lobby were milling about, meeting and greeting one another, mostly in business attire. To me, it looked more like a funeral than a wedding. A lot of black, and not too much festive color to be seen anywhere! It is not traditional in Korean culture to give gifts to the bride and groom, but rather to give money in a white envelope, which was collected by a group of hired staff at a long desk in the lobby. Friends and coworkers usually give about $50, family members give more. The ceremony had started before everyone was seated, in fact, there weren't enough seats for everyone, so most of our crew hung about near a side wall. The flowers, candles, and cake decorations were all fake/plastic, but looked elegant, and there was a giant photographic poster of the bride and groom in casual clothes on one wall (which was far too cheesy for my personal taste, but whatev.) The whole decor had a bit of a "wedding factory" feel, not so much the carefully planned and chosen details typical in weddings at home, where each wedding denotes the personal style of the couple. We listened to their vows and their parents words to each of them (that was the most beautiful part to me, the mothers were dressed in traditional Korean hanbok, and each gave their parting words of advice and wisdom to their son/daughter) and then a song was sung to them by a friend (a bit Disney-esque, to be honest.) Afterwards we all took group pictures together... first the family members, then the bride's friends, then the groom's friends. (The bride had a lot more friends than the groom, which was kind of funny to me, especially when he started calling up some of her friends to stand with him and fill in some obvious gaps.) As we left, there was another wedding party coming in to set up...