Korean Wedding Hall

After meeting with Jihyeon's parents to get their permission (click here) the wedding planning ball started rolling pretty much immediately  Her parents did the leg work for us and checked out a bunch of wedding venue's in Iksan and recommended one for us to go and look at. The building is almost new and just a short walk from their apartment which makes it super convenient. 

In my 365 days in Korea album I posted this picture a few weeks ago. You can see the wedding hall in the background. This is one of the things I find interesting about Korea. Everywhere there is rampant development going on as cities continually expand and build new buildings and roads but it is still not unusual to see a farmer tending his field on an empty block in the middle of the city.

Anyway, I digress...

In Korea wedding halls fully cater to all the needs of the bride and groom. They have photographers and professional makeup artists available for a small fee and also have a range of wedding dresses and suits that the bride and groom can rent. There is also a dining hall attached which serves a buffet meal both during and after the wedding (more on that later).

The wedding hall invited us to check the place out while they had a ceremony there. It was nice to see the place filled with people rather than a large empty room.

To the left is a dedicated makeup artist/hair dresser room. Straight ahead is a room where a professional photographer takes photos of the family, bride and groom before the wedding, and to the right around the corner is the purple themed hall pictured below. 

  
After looking around the hall, Jihyeon's parents took us out for lunch to a famous cold noodle place in the old downtown area of Iksan. In Korea it is normal to see a set of scissors on the table. These are used instead of a knife to cut the food your are eating, be it vegetables, meat or noodles. 

After lunch we all drove to Geumsansa temple which was about 1 hour away. I have written about it in a separate blog post <here> (coming soon).

We forgot to check out the dining hall, so we went back the next day when no on was there. The woman giving us the tour told us that for people that were in a hurry and could not stay long, they video the ceremony downstairs and project it live on a screen in the wedding hall live so that people can choose to eat and watch people getting hitched at the same time. Everyone in Korea is always in a hurry and never has enough time. At my EPIK orientation one of the lecturers said "1 year in Korea is equivalent to 3 or 4 years in a western country". I reckon he was about right. 

We decided it looked nice and the price was reasonable, so we put down a deposit for the 16th of November.