A Few More Cultural Differences From The Wedding

So I realized there were a few more things I noticed during the wedding last weekend that struck me as surprising cultural differences (or perhaps just different from what I've seen in the States). At weddings I've been to in the US, the large majority of women wear skirts or dresses, but at this wedding most women wore dress pants and blazers. Some women in their twenties wore short skirts or dresses, and the older female relatives of the bride and groom wore traditional Korean clothes called hanbok (interestingly, the male relatives all wore Western-style suits), but dress pants were definitely the norm:

I also thought it was interesting that besides toddlers (whose parents dressed them up in fancy skirts or little sweater-vests) all the kids at the wedding wore jeans and sweatshirts:

Another thing that was unexpected was that I was given a pretty ticket that allowed me to enter the luncheon hall and eat lunch. Maybe that's because anyone can attend the wedding ceremony but there's only enough food for a set number of people? 

And the last thing from the wedding that I wanted to share, that was wildly different from what I've seen in the States, was after the bride and groom were married by the officiant, their friends put on performances for them. One friend sang a song for them with music playing in the background, and then six of their friends (three guys and three girls) did a two-minute-long choreographed dance for them which was pretty hilarious. I tried to upload it but the file was too big so hopefully I'll find another way.

I got another surprise today, more than a week after the wedding! After school the teacher whose wedding it was came up and handed me a little incense canoe from her week-long honeymoon in Phuket! (It's really popular for South Koreans to go to Southeast Asia or Europe on their honeymoon.) She thanked me for coming to her wedding, but I felt like I should be thanking her! My mentor teacher told me it was common for people to bring friends and family souvenirs from their honeymoon, which struck me as so nice for all the guests but probably a lot of work/money for the newlyweds. I'm quite pleased with my little gift from Thailand though: