Korean Job Discussion Forums

[JLarter]

So my Korean girlfriend said yes this week!
We are in the early stages of planning a wedding. I was going to push for it to be in England until today I found out a lot of my friends and family would be willing to fly over here for a ceremony.
How much is the wedding likely to set me back? I will be paying for it myself because of my fiances family having some money problems.
Any help with rough costs would be nice.

[karma police]

you are about to make the biggest mistake of your life. get out of it at any cost! if you go through with it, it will only cause you endless regret and sorrow.

[JamesFord]

[karma police]

DOUBLE DITTO! don't be a complete dumass, partial dumass!

[biggpoppa]

great advice guys, i really don't understand why people enjoy jumping down the throats of others on here so often...he asked a legit question...maybe if the title said, "i just asked my korean gf to marry me, did i make a mistake?" then sure your comments would be welcomed, however he's looking for info not a waste of time...so how about the next time you see someone asking a question and you feel the need to reply with a completely useless post you press that little red X in the top right and save us all the trouble...

to the OP, sorry i can't help you out with any info, but congrats!

[ABC KID]

[weatherman]

Remember marriage isn't a word, it's a sentence. Not saying marriage is either good or bad, but know what you are getting into!

[NightSky]

Congratulations!

I don't know what's wrong with some of the other posters on this board.

[DHC]

Congratulations! Don't listen to the negative rantings of some who post on this forum. I have been in Korea for 10 years and married to a wonderful Korean woman for eight years. Contrary to what you read on this forum,it is possible to have a good life and Korea and Korean/western marriages do work. Again,congratulations!!

[howie2424]

Congratulations on your engagement. As for rough costs I guess it depends on how you plan to get hitched. My wife and I went the wedding hall route which, though a little on the tacky side by western standards, is easy because it's one stop shopping. The hall takes care of everything, the reception, photographer, dress, etc. The cost for me was 4.5 million won. Guests at weddings in Korea are expected to donate cash as a wedding gift. The amount is usually between 30,000 and 50,000 won. We had about 70 guests and netted about 2.5 million in 'gifts' which we applied toward the cost of the wedding leaving a net cost of about 2 million. Hope that helps

[Gamecock]

Don't forget to budget for sexy dancers for your wedding ceremony!

[Scouse Mouse]

It all depends on what you want, or more importantly, what your girlfriend wants.

My girlfriend's family want no part of her marrying a westerner, so I am footing the bill for our ceremony. Unfortunately, my girlfriend still wanted the whole 'show' for the sake of Korea, and all those wedding hall extras add up. We (she has savings) were expecting to pay 8-10m for the ceremony. She considers it important to have EVERYTHING if we go the wedding hall route. Remember you are expected to pay for gifts for her family, as well as shell out for the wedding. And you should buy a lot of jewellery for her to show off.

You need to discuss with your girlfriend what she expects. You can do the wedding very cheaply if she is willing to cut out all of those extras, but she may consider cutting those things out as something that would cause her (and her family) to lose face. This could be despite the fact that you are paying where Korean culture expects her family to pay out.

Thankfully, my girlfriend agreed that with a kid on the way, our money could be put to better use. We are opting for a UK wedding ceremony, which is much cheaper, less tacky, and will provide her with photo's to show to her friends. It also helps avoid the uncomfortable scenario that would result from my stubborn refusal to provide gifts for my bell-end father-in-law, who still expects to take credit for the ceremony despite his refusal to even meet me before it. She is happy for him to 'lose face' by having a ceremony outside of Korea and I would much rather have the ceremony with my family, who will welcome her with open arms.

[Ruraljuror]

Congratulations! I got married in August and so far I love being married! It's so nice to always have a warm body in your bed.

I agree with previous posters that you need to have a talk with your fiance about what she expects. Unless she is a total nut case, she will certainly understand why you can't have a big wedding since you will be the one holding the bill at the end. My wife and I went through the same thing, and she was so supportive that she ended up being more aggressive in cutting costs from the wedding than I was. Odds are your wife will be like my wife and be quite understanding (it helps if you explain that any money left over after the wedding is, essentially, *hers*).

I got married at a wedding hall, and had my honeymoon in Phuket. The total was around 9-10 million I think. Wedding halls get a lot of crap on this site, but I personally am an advocate for them. Granted your wedding will be somewhat cheesy and generic, and there is no way to avoid that, but the good news is the wedding hall does *all* the work...you don't have to choose floral arrangements, china patterns, a band, etc. Just look at a few halls, choose the one you like best, have your wife tell the hall what she wants, and the wedding hall will tell you how much it costs. And that is all you have to do...your wedding has now been planned from start to finish. Not the most romantic thing in the world to be sure, but judging from what few facts I know about you A) you're a guy and b) you'd like to save some money I think you'll be more than happy with the service you will get at a wedding hall.

As for honeymoon advice, here's two important pieces of advice:
1. Haggle. When we went to our travel agent, I was in a bad mood and I thought the prices she kept giving us were shocking, so I kept standing up to leave, pissing off my wife who was at that point deeply hypnotized by the pictures of Phuket. I stood up and tried to leave about a half dozen times, and each time the deal the travel agent was making us got alot better...I wasn't actually trying to haggle, I just thought the travel agency was a scam and actually did want to leave. We ended up with a MUCH better honeymoon...it was literally twice as many days, at better hotels, for less money than the first honeymoon she tried to sell us.
2. Avoid AT ALL COSTS the "honeymoon package" (pronounced "honeymoon packagee" so you will know it when you hear it). Your wife, being Korean, will probably insist on the "packagee". She will say things like "this isn't a vacation, it's our honeymoon" and "our honeymoon memories will last forever", so you may have to compromise a little here, but stay as strong as possible. Basically every day of your honeymoon will be considered as a "packagee day" or a "free time day". The problem with the "packagee days" is that they involve waking up at 7:30 AM and being dragged around by a Korean tour guide and a big group of 20 Korean tourists for the next 15 hours after which you are almost too exhausted to do the thing that you came on your honeymoon to do. --Almost--. You want as many "free time" days as possible, where you can wake up whenever you want and do whatever you want. I'd imagine this is self-evident to all Western People, but it's not easy to talk a Korean person into. I managed to negotiate my wife down to 50% packagee days, and 50% free time days and considered myself lucky. Well after we got there, my wife suddenly understood why I was fighting so hard...we were so busy on our first 3 days, all "packagee" that we never even saw the beach, even though we were staying at a hotel on the beach...we had to meet our guide every day at 8 am and didn't get home until it was night time. Fortunately, the rest of the trip was "free time" and I didn't feel at all slothful spending every waking moment on the beach. My wife said afterward I was so right about everything and we would never, ever do another "packagee" tour, and she has since gone on to warn her friends and her family the same.

Anyway, congratulations and good luck. If you've chosen the right girl, marriage is awesome as you will have someone you can trust at your side for the rest of the life.

[Julius]

[normalcyispasse]

I, for one, am happily married (to another foreigner, though). Most weddings that I've heard of in Korea cost around 5k, though the sky's the limit. If you're having a lot of Korean in-laws, expect 7-10.