Ceremony Planning.

So here is what Stephen and I knew about what we wanted in our ceremony- walk down the aisle, someone pray over us, say our vows, kiss and go.

We talked with our pastor (Jimmy is doing our wedding so that is another answered prayer, it will be in English!) and John (kinda the Korean leader of our church) about our ceremony this past Sunday at lunch. And lemme' tell you, this was the most stressful part of our whole planning so far. I feel like everyone is an amateur at planning their wedding ceremony.....at least if it is your first one.

So we sit there and the first few minutes was explaining how we don't want an announcer. You see in Korea there is literally someone like a sports announcer who tells everyone "Here is the groom" and "Here comes the bride" or "Here are the parents." Which for us Americans tends to be implied, or at least you hope it is implied when you walk down the aisle in a white dress with your father.

So no we don't want an announcer.

Then there was a little discussion about how we didn't need special chairs for our parents. Another Korean custom is that the parents sit up front facing the audience for the ceremony......funny how they have adopted their own traditions to the western ceremony.

There was also a big confusion over if the ring-bearer actually will carry the rings, and if we should have someone sit at the table to watch the gifts/tell people to sign the guest book.

So my advice is to watch some wedding videos of ceremonies on youtube and figure out what you want before sitting down with your pastor. Then at least you will know something. However that would not have saved us from the cultural confusion about a wedding ceremony.

I know our wedding will be fine as long as we say those vows and get that kiss, but it was a stress that could have been avoided, both if we had researched and had known we would have Jimmy as our pastor; we still weren't sure if it would be in Korean or not so we didn't really discuss it.

So yes, answered prayers, service in English and ceremony planned, now I just need to make up those programs. :)