Korean Wedding Photography

Guess who's back?

It took me a long time to come back here. There are a lot of reasons for that. For one thing, planning a wedding is a terrible, horrible thing. For another thing, life. Life, in the words of Dr. Malcolm from my favorite movie about dinosaurs eating people, finds a way. In this case, life found a way to keep me from writing. But not more, life! You aren't the boss of me! I shake my fist at thee!

So, in case you're wondering, the wedding happened. Park and I were united in Christ at Holy Transfiguration Church in McLean, VA. Holy T, as we members affectionately call it, has been my home parish my entire life. If you're ever in the area and want to see authentic Eastern Rite worship, Divine Liturgy is at 10:30 on Sunday. Go. You may be lost (I can't see the priest!). You may be confused (Why is everything in Greek and Arabic?). But it will be fantastic. Just make sure you wear some comfortable shoes.


Anyway, the wedding was awesome, but even more awesome is being married. My students tell me that I think this because I'm still in the honeymoon phase. This may be true. However, I feel as though when you're committed to each other, when you know that there are struggles ahead, you have a certainty that everything will work itself out. Every time we disagree about something, there is a foregone conclusion that, by the end of the day, we'll be okay. We have to be.

But enough about that. I'm not here to tell you about how to have a happy marriage (hint: I don't know the answer to that question) or even to bore you with tales of the mishaps at our wedding (there were oh-so-many). Instead, I'm here to tell you about the wonderful world of Korean wedding photography.

We woke up like this.

Korean weddings are, to be honest, quite boring by American standards. There is some kind of ceremony, during which most guests play with their phones, and then there is a giant buffet. In order to get into the buffet, guests must give a monetary donation. Then you eat and leave. That's it. Korea has a whole industry of wedding halls set up just for the purpose of these weddings, and they are probably much easier on everyone involved. How, then, to create interesting and lasting memories? That's where the photographs come in. These photos are taken several months before the wedding.

To get started, you first need a planning agency. Well, you don't really need one, but it makes everything so much easier. Fortunately, Park used to work as a part-timer for a wedding planner! So we went to her to employ her services. Now that you're at the planner's office, you need to look through albums and pick 1) your photographer 2) your dress company 3) your hair and make-up studio.

Several months passed. Then, two weeks before the shoot, we got to pick our clothing. In Korea, brides make the incredibly wise choice of renting their wedding dresses. Of course, I mean wedding dresses plural. Our photo shoot needed two wedding dresses, an evening gown, a cocktail dress, and our hanbok. Since these dresses are for photo purposes only, the do not have to be in any way practical. Thus, every dress I wore made it impossible for me to walk unassisted, and sitting was mostly impossible.

Sitting yes. Walking no.

Now for the day of the shoot. Call time was 6:30 AM. We arrived at the salon, and the awesome people there got right to work. For the first time in life, I appreciated the effort that must go into making celebrities always look good. Make up took one hour. I didn't think make up could ever take that long, but it did. They went all out. There was a woman who specialized in foundation. Then I was passed on to a woman who specialized in eyes. She even gave me fake lashes. Finally, there was a woman who specialized in lips. Now on to hair. I think Korean salons have an apprentice system. I started with two apprentice hair stylists. Then, when all of the necessary preliminaries were in plance, only then did the master stylist take over to finish. Meanwhile, the others stood back and watched in wonder while my hair met its fabulous fate. I will maintain that I have never nor probably will ever look as good as I looked on that day.

Time for my daily selfie.

Meanwhile, Park was also in the make up and hair chair, but, being a man, it didn't take as long. Two hours later, we both looked great. The first dress and the tux arrived, and we changed right at the salon. It is important to mention now that all of this dressing and undressing and walking is impossible by myself. This is why, for a nominal fee, one can also hire a lady whose sole job is to help one with these things. Which is exactly what we we did.

We arrived at the photography studio and got right down to business. The studio was a giant room with various backgrounds and settings. In one corner was a book store. In another corner was a Victorian living room. There were lots of props as well, such as bouquets, bicycles, benches, giant chairs, and a large rabbit head. Typical studio stuff.

This was Park's favorite picture because he didn't have to smile.

Then we took pictures for the next six hours. There was no time for food. No time for coffee. No time for the bathroom. Just a quick succession of photos and quick changes and then more photos. When our time in the studio was over, we went for a walk in Apgujeong, one of Seoul's more affluent and cute neighborhoods, and took more pictures in our regular clothes. I was so impressed by the photographer's ability to get us to pose just right and smile just so. He also had a really good eye for how to make everything look beautiful. We were in the middle of a city, and yet we looked like the only people there.

A few weeks later, we went back to the studio to pick out the photos for our album. These photos would be lovingly photoshopped and be ready in time for us to display at our wedding.

So there you have it, folks. The Korean wedding photo industry. I wish they had such a thing in the states. These photos are going to be a great memory when we're older. We can look back and see how we looked and how we looked at each other. They're also cute! And, in the case that the photos at one's actual wedding don't turn out the way one wants, there's always these photos to fall back on. So, what do you think? Worth it?