Korean Job Discussion Forums

[GottaBeKD]

This post is for all of you who have married Korean men or women.

My lovely fiancee and I are anxious to tie the knot, and to cross this obstacle. Considering the way Koreans treat relationships, marriage is almost essential for me, a Canadian. Korean women often won't even introduce you to their parents until you're ready to get married. You cannot live with them, and they cannot even visit your house. To do what a Canadian couple would do before marriage, without many difficulties, is often simply impossible in Korea without tieing the knot.

My questions as I anxiously prepare are:

1. What were the biggest surprises with your korean wedding?
2. What were the biggest difficulties / obstacles
3. What legal loopholes were involved
4. What was the approximate cost of your wedding
5. What preparations did you need to take, be it legal documents / registrations or purchasing of jewellery, and other traditional items.
6. Finally what responsiblities and freedoms have you since inherited, now that you are married.


I hope some of you can answer. Even if you're not married but have some stories, that information is very useful too, but state up-front that it's second-hand please.

Kindest regards, thanks in advance!

[kimcheeking]

[Circus Monkey]

[GottaBeKD]

Thank you so much for the responses, so quickly. This information is very good to know, and I am reassured that there were no eye-openers (surprises) involved. The information regarding cost was also very useful.

I suppose with number 6. I was looking for information regarding any kind of legal freedoms or responsiblities you may have now that you are married. In that I mean, regarding work visas, taxes, resident status, citizenship, and this type of thing. Does it change your ability to gain a visa or workin in Korea, what about citizenship, what about for your korean wife/groom back home, has it made things easier regarding work/citzenship there?

Thanks again for the information, I'm glad to hear that all is well for you guys, and I look forward to hearing from any others if they are reading.

[The Great Wall of Whiner]

What I would like to know is:

When you marry a Korean, do you have a greater legal status in Korea?

[heartnseoul]

[Bulsajo]

[Circus Monkey]

I should mention that the costs I quoted only included the expenses incurred for the actual wedding day. I didn't include the ring, necessary paperwork, etc... that was done beforehand. As well, one of my mother-in-law's friends lent my mother-in-law some money to help with some expenses. That was also another pleasant surprise.



CM

[Dazed and Confused]

1. What were the biggest surprises with your korean wedding?
My freaky in-laws.

2. What were the biggest difficulties / obstacles
My freaky in-laws and saving money to pay for it all.

3. What legal loopholes were involved
Embassy documents and the trouble of actually going to Seoul to get everything done.

4. What was the approximate cost of your wedding
11 million won. That's everything! from my underwear to the honeymoon.

5. What preparations did you need to take, be it legal documents / registrations or purchasing of jewellery, and other traditional items.
Just the usual stuff and jumping through the embassy hoops.

6. Finally what responsiblities and freedoms have you since inherited, now that you are married
I have to put up with my freaky in-laws. We lived together before marriage and hardly ever saw them. Now I am expected to spend holidays with people I don't like and who are mean to me. After 2 years I suddenly get migrain headaches when we are due to go to their house so I can stay home to aviod their company. wink, wink

[Shadow]

I understand your concerns and you are in a difficult position. This is what I did before I got married. I agreed to go through the motions of asking my wife's parents for permission to marry her daughter and promised them two things and only two things.

I was invited by my fiance to meet her parents and the rest of her family at a formal dinner. When I arrived, I was interrogated at great length of what my intentions were and a lot of other nonsensical stuff. I cut them short and said that I would promise them not one but two important things. Everybody looked at me for the magic words and they came. "I promise to keep a roof over your daughter's head and to put rice in her belly." That is all I said and that was enough for them to know to mind their own business. It worked.

I decided not to get married in Korea but in Canada instead. We got married by the Justice of the Peace and we had a really nice outdoor wedding. Some friends of mine offered me their cottages for our honeymoon and we travelled around Eastern Canada for a week and had ourselves a really nice time. Since returning to Korea I have had no interference from my Korean in-laws. However, that hasn't stopped them from attempting to put foolish ideas in my wife's head from time-to-time. Good luck!

[Shadow]

I have to admit that I think the Great Wall of Whiner has a great sense of humour. Let's have a round of applause for "The Wall."

[Bruce Willis]

HeartnSeoul's cost is right on the money, considering the total cost of a Korean wedding. A year or two ago an article appeared in either the
"Korea Times" or "Korea Herald" on the cost of a wedding. The exact figure was 70 million won. Normally, it said, about 40 million was paid by the groom and 30 million by the bride. However, I think this included getting settled into a home and getting it furnished. The KimCheeKing
and Circus Monkey get off light at 5 million or less. One is much more
relieved to see figures like that after reading about the Korean average.
Traditionally in the US, the bride's family covers all wedding expenses.
But that tradition may be getting out of date. A woman in LA once told
me she went to a New York stockbroker's wedding where the cost of
the flowers alone, covering all the walls and ceiling, was $86,000.

[Hotuk]

My wife and I got married in Canada, where we met. We had debated which country we'd marry in and Canada won out, so a contingent of Korean relatives flew to Nova Scotia in Sept 2000. We held the wedding outside, at my family's cottage on a cliff next to the ocean. A friend who acted as a full-time translator made it all possible - every aspect of the wedding, down to the invitations and the speeches was fully bilingual. The day went even better than we planned. It will certainly go down as the first Cumberland County wedding to feature hanboks and the singing of Arirang.

When I later got to see what Korean wedding-hall weddings looked like - and I've been to several of these weddings by now - I felt like I dodged a bullet. If my wedding had been like the ones I've seen, my head would have exploded at the altar. Here's what has made lasting impressions on me of Korean wedding halls:

1. insanely crowded: their Vegas-style scheduling means there's always a throng of people pushing and shoving in and out of the ceremony rooms. They're like factories, profoundly lacking in any dignity.

2. bubble machine and fog through the ceremony. Gross.

3. Disney Fairyland-themed gaudy decor.

4. That hateful "Congratulations" song.

5. Rude congregations: People carrying on conversations, talking on their phones, playing with kids, getting up and leaving all in the middle of the vows! It wouldn't have endeared me with my new family if I had yelled during my ceremony, "STFU!!"

If you're going to do it here, go to a couple wedding-hall weddings first. Make sure you know what you're getting into. Of course, it may not be up to you anyway, if you're a guy - I was fortunate that my bride wanted the Canada-style thing, since generally brides call the shots when it comes to weddings. My one creative input was to demand piano instead of organ. Other than that, I was a good boy and did as told.

Had I not been so lucky, and had we done the wedding here, the marriage might not have lasted the ceremony.

[mack the knife]

nothing changes for you legally...well, that's not totally true...you are now entitled to an F-2 visa which allows you work (only with immigration's blessing) anywhere you want other than a few government/military jobs...that's what i was told at immigration...you don't have to leave the country every three or six months (as you would have to on a C-3 or tourist visa). you can work several jobs instead of just one (although the E-2 also allows you to do this with your boss's permission)...you cannot teach privately but if you get caught you will face a fine and not deportation (an older, married friend of mine has been caught 3 times).

as for how your life in general will change...your friends will not call you to go out on the town anymore for a while, at least until they've given you what they feel is enough time to fully drain your nads.....

[kimcheeking]