Every couple of years, I get into wedding season, and I think this summer-fall is going to be the next one. I have three weddings that I’m invited to, though not entirely sure whether I’ll be going to all three. One is a big one, my sister’s. Last weekend included a three-hour bus trip home that turned into six because of the snow, a trip to David’s Bridal (what I like to call the Wal-Mart of wedding shops), a meeting with a florist, a trip to two bakeries to inquire about wedding cakes, and a stakeout of the reception hall.
The trip to David’s Bridal was an interesting one. We had an “appointment” at noon but didn’t get an associate until 12:30. There were only two dresses my sister wanted to try on, so the associate got them for us, as well as a veil and some various accessories she needed, but was pretty much MIA after that because she was also helping two or three other brides/bridesmaids at the same time. She checked on us occasionally, but I was the one pulling the satin and tulle over my sister’s head, trying to gauge the size, and fixing the back of the dress (which I’m going to be doing about a million times on the wedding day). Much to our surprise, she actually found one she liked amid the sea of bedazzled ruffles and bows, a simple one that was the least David’s Bridal-y. Thank God my bridesmaid dress is from J Crew. I don’t think I can handle wearing any of the seafoam green/fushia/pale blue mess I saw in there. And don’t let them fool you into looking at their “separates” line, where you mix and match tops and bottoms. That just doubles the bridesmaid fugliness into two pieces instead of one.
Anyway, the price and the simplicity of the dress is really what sold us on it. Not too often can you get the dress and veil for less than $500-$600 bucks. So throughout the course of the wedding, my sister—who initially had said she wanted to just show up at the ceremony in a rent-a-dress just for the photos—is going to change three times: once in her wedding dress, once in traditional Korean dress, and probably once more into a more casual J Crew wedding dress she bought on sale for the dancing.
Speaking of traditional Korean dress, I caught a random ABC sitcom called “In Case of Emergency” that starts Jonathan Silverman and Kelly Hu, a Chinese actress playing a Korean woman. From what I can gather, it’s about a bunch of housemates, and Jonathan Silverman’s character is in love with Kelly. (In the tradition of movies/shows with Asian actors, the Asian character’s name is the actor’s real-life name, like how Jackie Chan is always Jackie in his movies.) Anyway, in the show she pretends to be married to please her strict Korean parents who are in town, and they demand she have a traditional Korean wedding. As part of this traditional Korean wedding, the groom is supposed to present the bride with a live goose. Now, from what I could tell, the Korean garb and overall setup of the Korean ceremony looked close to authentic, but I’ve never heard of this goose business. It sounds like a Hollywood setup to me. Or maybe the writers did a lot of deep research and this is so authentic I’ve never heard of it.
Anyway, my other strange Korean-wedding-related media encounter in the past two days was a NYT article my coworker sent me on the troubles that can occur in a Korean wedding when the in-laws aren’t pleased with the gifts to/from their son or daughter-in-law to be. According to this article, the gifts can make or break future relations with the in-laws. The dowry especially is deemed important. Hmm. The only dowry my future husband is getting is maybe my mom’s homemade kimchee for life. Otherwise, all he’s inheriting is my debt.
On an aside, this article follows another article about Korean men joining dating services to find Vietnamese brides, by the same writer, and is part of a trend I’ve noticed over the past few years of articles that like to study the various eccentricities—or at least what seems eccentric to mainstream Americans—of Korean culture like some sort of cultural anthropology. The New York Times seems especially interested in its observations of Korean culture. Or, as the subject line in my coworker’s email to me reads: “Mainstream media continues to report Korean dirty laundry.”
Go air your own dirty laundry, New York Times! I know you’ve probably got a few more Jayson Blairs embedded somewhere in there. Harrumph.
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