Step one: Make Korean Friends

I arrived in South Korea on August 2, 2010. Ten days later my boyfriend (Stephen) showed up at my apartment at 7:20 in the morning rudely awaking me with the best birthday present ever: a huge chunk of hard carbon that nicely fits on my left ring finger thanks to sleuth work from my baby sister.

So Stephen and I pretty quickly set to trying to figure out where we will have the wedding, right after chatting with our parents and a few friends about our happy engagement.

There are a few things that we know we need:

1. Our immediate families to be present
2. Spend time with our closest friends
3. Have a wedding date fairly quickly (December or January)
4. Have enough money for a honeymoon

Well, seeing as we are both english teachers at Hagwons (Korean after-school schools) we are a bit limited on vacation time (one week in summer and one week in winter). We searched all sorts of options from Mexico, Florence, the Caman Islands, to going home to Virginia. And we have learned a lot about plane ticket prices.

Most of the options that we explored were places that would be relatively inexpensive to fly to for our family and friends. However we soon found out our winter holiday would be the first week of February and therefore a completely awful time for family and many of our friends to travel from the States.

One day my mother, Stephen's mother, Stephen, my best friend and I all had a very similar idea ......why not have two weddings? One in Korea and one back home after we return for our friends.

So taking it as divine intervention that everyone happened to be thinking the same thing we have decided to have our wedding in Korea.

This of course creates entirely new problems; translation.

Neither Stephen nor I speak Korean worth a darn. This means we are fully dependent on our Korean co-workers and friends.

Stephen's co-teacher Minnie has been very helpful. She took Stephen all around town looking for wedding rings and has taken me around to a wedding hall or two, only to discover it will cost around 1,850,000 won to just hold the ceremony. - That is two tickets to Europe.

We have one more location to check out, a hotel in town; but the free chapel that our church (Hanbit) has offered is sounding pretty good, even if it isn't lovely. The important thing is that we get married, which I am pretty sure can happen anywhere.

So as of now, we have a date, January 1, 2011 at 1 pm. That's right, 1/1/11 at 1. My mother has ordered my wedding dress online.....and I have yet to try it on.....so perhaps soon I will have details on korean tailors- I really hope not though. And I have almost completed our photoshop invites- which will hopefully cut costs.....but where do I find a printer?

I suppose this is another job for some Korean friends!