Reviews

Due to my busy lifestyle I good not find the time to finish our reviews of the other places we visited when deciding the wedding venue. Here is a summary of our thoughts on each place (You can find the homepage for each venue in the right sidebar):

JAU Center:

Pro's

• Quite cheap
• Wedding garden was huge.

Con's

• The Wedding garden was right next to the car park with no kind of barrier (wall, hedge etc) between. Not good for that romantic atmosphere.
• The guests sit at round dinner tables waiting for the actual ceramony to finish so they can eat dinner. Very effecient but does nothing for a romantic or traditional atmosphere. Also they will not be flexible and have the guests sitting in rows (like in a church) during the ceramony, and have a separate room for the meal.
• It is not in Songsu's hometown.

Namsan Art Garden

Pro's

• Very romantic atmosphere
• Barrier between car park and garden
• Management are flexible and will seat the guests in rows to watch the ceramony.
• The guests eat in a separate place from where the ceramony takes place.
• It's cheap.
• Easy to find and it's Central Seoul location means that it's convenient for many of the guests.

Con's

• The wedding garden is quite small so many of our guest may have to stand up.
• It is not in Songsu's hometown.

Shilla Hotel

It looked like it was the closest to a traditional UK wedding but we did not even bother to investigate it because the price was extortionate...W30,000,000 minimum. It's the same deal at other hotels so we didn't bother to check out any more.


Children's Grand Park

Pro's

• Very Cheap
• Central Seoul location; convenient and easy to find.

Con's

• No barrier between the wedding venue and the rest of the park (which includes a zoo and a funfair) and it's visitors. The atmosphere will not be private or romantic. Also we will be able to hear the music and announcements from the rest of the park, even above the volume of any music we arrange.
• The food hall looks tacky, as does the wedding hall used if it rains.
• Not in Songsu's hometown.

Korea Wedding Town

Pro's

• In Songsu's hometown. A very big plus as at least half of our guests will be from here and it is tradition that the wedding takes place in the groom's hometown.
• Reasonably priced
• Ceramony and meal take place in separate areas.
• Garden is big enough for all our guests.
• There is a barrier between the garden and the car park (though not a very good one).
• Wedding hall/room (used if the weather is not favourable) is not tacky...it actually looks quite nice.
• The staff are willing to make certain changes so that we can make the ceramony more Western.

Con's

• The barrier between the car park and the garden exists but not very effective.
• There will be guests from other weddings walking past the garden while we are getting married.

Overall, we decided that Korea Wedding Town was the best choice. With the venue booked onward with the rest of the planning!!!

Dohobuchongsa

A month ago, the first place we visited was Dohobuchongsa (see sidebar). At the time we thought that having a white wedding outside was impossible so we felt that our only choice was a traditional wedding outside. This lead us to take at look at this place, as it holds traditional weddings outside. Not only this but it is in Incheon, Songsu's hometown.

The Pro's:

Beautiful surroundings
Songsu's hometown
It's cheap

The Con's

Half of our guests are coming from Seoul, so we will have to arrange a shuttle bus for them.

It is a public building so our wedding will not be private.

Even if we book and pay for the larger court several months in advice, if the local council suddenly decides to hold a cultural event, we will be booted into the smaller yard. The smaller yard can only hold around 100 people, and given that we are expecting double that this made this place an impossible choice.

Setting

This blog follows myself and my Korean fiance as we search for a suitable place for our wedding. I say 'suitable' because we are both quite particular about how and where we want to get married.

When: April 2008

Where: Incheon or Seoul

Venue: wedding garden or a traditional building.

How: purely British white wedding in a wedding garden, or a purely Korean traditional wedding in a traditional building.

Why:

• we cannot afford two weddings.
• wedding halls are tacky
• hotels are too expensive
• Korean churches are too ugly

We must have:

• enough space for at least 200 people to sit down and watch the wedding
• witnesses must be seated in rows, not at dinner tables during the actual ceremony
• the area must be private
• some kind of wedding party, preferably in the same place
• Songsu's mother's priest to marry us
• Real wedding vows to say to one another, not just listen to the priest and say 'ne' (yes).
• If it is a white wedding, we need bridesmaids....and bridesmaids' dresses.
• If it is a white wedding, a small traditional wedding after the first ceremony.
• All the guests get a piece of the wedding cake (white wedding).
• Buffet must cater for both Korean and Western tastes.

Some of what I have listed are things that are taken for granted as part of a western wedding but are difficult to get here in Korea. This is frustrating because Koreans usually have 'white weddings' as they want to copy the western style wedding, but they have omitted so many important elements of the wedding. Thus the so-called western wedding is very Koreanised.

The worst characteristics about the Korean White Wedding is that the whole event usually takes about 1.5 hours (that's the wedding ceremony plus the dinner). If this is not bad enough, usually the place is set up like a dinner show rather than a wedding. We are talking witnesses sat at dinner tables, not in rows, banners and flyers and a powerpoint presentation of the happy couple on the wall. Due to poor acousitics the bride and groom, and the person who is marrying them have to talk into a microphone.

It is our mission to cut out the commercialism and make it more romantic. Let's see how many of the above list we can achieve!