Traditional South Korean Wedding Attire

Pinterent    September 18, 2023    Comment   

Incorporating your Korean traditions can make your wedding a truly unique event. These days we’ve adapted to more westernized weddings, but with our help, you can have the best of both worlds.

During the Jeonanrye ceremony, a kireogi or a wild goose was presented to the prospective groom. The groom was expected to bow twice before presenting the kireogi to his future mother in law. In modern Korean weddings, a wooden goose may be given in place of a traditional kireogi. This Korean tradition is respected as a symbol of harmony and structure. Wild geese mate for life, so by giving the mother a goose, the groom is promising a life of love and care to the woman’s daughter.

The parents of the bride and groom are entitled to invite whomever they please, often resulting in a guest count as large as 500! It is Korean tradition that the bride and groom wander the wedding venue to welcome each guest on their special day, this can often become a stressful task from the bride and groom. However, the groom may greet the wedding guests in one area while the bride has her own special room in which to greet her guests. Photos of the bride and her guests are also taken before the ceremony.

What Is The Traditional Korean Wedding Dress?

During the Korean wedding ceremony, vows are taken in the kunbere ceremony. Both bride and groom wear the traditional hanbok, a traditional Korean dress specially designed for the ceremony. The hanbok represents thousands of years of tradition and is usually made of a lightweight material with bright colors, simple lines, and no pockets. The bride will wear a pink or purple hanbok, while the groom’s mother wears a blue hanbok. Female members of the family may also wear the hanbok, but they may choose more modern clothing in place of the traditional dress.

A celebrant and a Master of Ceremonies officiate at the ceremony. After vows are spoken, the bride and groom seal their vows by bowing and sipping wine from a gourd grown handed off by the mother of the bride. The ceremony is quick, and usually never lasts longer than one-half hour. After the vows are spoken, and the wine is finished, the family and guests will participate in a simple meal.

The main requirement for attending a Korean wedding is that you bring a white envelope that contains money to present to the bride and groom. The amount of money given depends on the relationship between the guest and the couple. It is traditional to give the chosen amount of money in one clean, crisp bill inside the white envelope.

Korean Wedding Traditions. Complete Guide!

After the ceremonies, it is traditional for the groom’s family to purchase a house for the newly married couple, and the brides’ family will provide the furnishings. Korean children are becoming more independent these days, and may already have homes of their own when they get married, so this tradition isn’t practiced as much as it used to be. Both families usually discuss and agree upon what wedding gifts will be given to their newly married children.

The pyebaek is one of many Korean wedding traditions emphasizing the importance of family within the culture. During the pyebaek, dates and chestnuts are given to the bride. Together, the bride and groom will visit his family’s home to gift the nuts and fruit. The dates and chestnuts are a Korean representation of the bride’s fertility. After the fruit and nuts are offered, the parents of the groom will serve sake in return. At the end of the ceremony, the parents of the groom throw the dates and chestnuts at the bride as she tries to catch them in her large, traditional skirt. The number of dates and chestnuts she catches symbolize the number of children she will later have.

If you’re a photographer interested in learning more about how to shoot cultural weddings, including Hindu, Jewish, Persian, Vietnamese, Korean, and Chinese weddings, we recommend our wedding photography education, available at SLR Lounge.

Korean Traditional Wedding Dress

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Dakota Kim has been a professional writer and editor for 17 years specializing in Korean cultural traditions, zero waste living, and budget travel.

A Korean wedding is a colorful and traditional affair, and though Western conventions have made inroads into Korean weddings in recent decades, several elements of ancient Korean nuptial traditions still occur at most ceremonies. Korean couples planning their own celebrations today often still include traditional practices like symbolic rites, gift-giving, bowing, and vows.

Korean Wedding Traditions

“There’s been a general shift in interest with modern couples wanting to incorporate elements of the Korean traditional wedding ceremony, ” Estella Park of LeeHwa Wedding says. “When my mother began this business 30 years ago, people thought the traditional ceremony was outdated, but nowadays it’s a trend. Americanized Koreans add meaning to their weddings by embracing their heritage and incorporating the deep symbolism of Korean weddings into their modern ceremonies. Our clients are fascinated to learn about the history behind each custom, from the food on the table to the gorgeous hanbok dresses we provide—it adds so much meaning to their ceremony.”

Laura (or LeeHwa) and Estella Park are the co-owners and wedding planners of family-run business LeeHwa Wedding. For five generations, LeeHwa has been creating couture Korean traditional garments called the hanbok in Los Angeles and serving as the bridge between the Los Angeles community and the roots of Korea.

If you want to include these traditional customs into your own wedding to reflect your culture, read about the rites and customs of a traditional Korean wedding ahead.

Wearing The Traditional Korean Hanbok At A Very Special Wedding

Korean will most likely wear hanbok, or Korean traditional formal clothing, historically made of silk, while the groom may wear hanbok or a suit. During the paebaek and the formal Korean traditional wedding, a bride may choose to wear a wonsam, an intricate upper garment embroidered with designs in silk thread, along with a full skirt called a chima. A less formal but still traditional bride wears the chima and a jeogori, a long-sleeved upper garment that is generally shorter and cropped higher compared to the wonsam. The more formal groom or a groom attending a paebaek wears a samogwandae, the court attire of the Chosun Dynasty. His attire consists of a long, elaborate robe-like vestment on top of pants and a jacket, along with a belt and a headpiece called a samo, a black cap with wings on the sides. The less formal groom might opt to simply wear pants called baji and a jacket called a jeogori.

The colors that the bride and groom wear are symbolic of the “taeguk, ” or “eum-yang” (also known as yin and yang). The bride dons a red hanbok, while the groom wears blue—together, the two colors, like the circle at the center of the Korean flag, represent the balance of complementary entities. Traditionally, the marriage would occur at dusk, representing the balance between light and dark as well. The mother of the bride will wear warm tones, including pink, purple, or orange, while the groom’s mother will wear cool tones like blue, gray, or green. However, if your mothers have specific color preferences, they have known to swap tones, Park says.

Cash gifts in white envelopes are the most common gift at a Korean wedding. Traditionally, during the paebaek, the bride and groom receive words of blessing and money gifts from their parents. LeeHwa Wedding provides silk pouches in which guests may place their white envelopes containing their gifts. Prior to the wedding day, the bride's family brings the groom's family money gifts as well.

Faith And Gyuho, A South African

Traditional Korean music will play. Historically, the groom would parade to the bride’s house on a horse, but now, an officiant will enter and begin to explain the wedding, guiding the audience through the sequence of events. The two mothers will walk in first, each with their own candles. The bride’s mother carries a red candle and the groom's mother carries a blue candle. Just like the red and blue clothing, these two colors symbolize the balance of cosmic forces that occur in nature. When the mother reaches the end