西洋오랑캐

As you may or may not know (depending how intensely you examined a picture of Tetris), this past Friday 진희 and I had our wedding photographs taken. Let me tell you about it.

At the crack of dawn (4:30 in the morning) I was awoken and made to take a shower. From that point I sat and waited around for awhile while the wife got ready herself. By 6:30 in the morning we were on a bus headed back to my old homestead, 홍대, which was where the photo studio was located. I had been under the impression that our photo session was to commence at 10:00 or so, but I guess we had to go in early to get our hair, make up, and other ablutions done.

The actual bus ride was uneventful save for the fact that at 6:30 in the morning every single person on the bus is a Korean man in a suit. Apparently no man in the country works in professions where suits are not required…but I digress. We go off the bus near 명동 in order to take the subway into 홍대 (since the photo studio was right next to the subway exit). The second strange thing I noticed is that at 7:30 in the morning, the streets of 명동 are totally empty save for some trash and pidgeons; I guess Japanese tourists like to sleep in.

After some going the wrong way on the subway action, we finally arrived at the photo studio. There was one person there to greet us, the make-up lady. There were also some big dogs. The make-up lady took my wife into the make-up lair and began doing her hair and make-up. I was left to my own devices. So I headed off to grab myself some breakfast: 김밥 and 만두. Breakfast achieve I returned to the studio to sit around for several hours. I read a book (albeit a short one), played some Gameboy, and studied Korean.

Then it was my turn to get my hair done. 10 minutes later I was playing Gameboy again. My wife was still in the make-up lair. Eventually my sister-in-law showed up (she had been recruited by my wife to take additional photos of the day’s events). Finally around 11:00 it was time to take some photos. So we took photos…a lot of photos! There were photos in all manner of gear: vests, ties, 16th century King of France-esque gear, pink, 한복, ect. The entire time I only had one hairstyle. My wife on the other hand was, from time to time, dragged off by the hair stylist to have her hair changed. So some six costume changes, and four hair styles later (6:00) we were finished.

The entire process wasn’t that bad, though after 7 hours of smiling, one’s face ceases being able to smile and just kind of makes this painful, teeth bearing grimace. Anyhow during the photo session, a parade of friends and co-workers came through to look at the pretty dresses / mock the pink vest I was wearing, so when the last photo had been taken we all headed off to have omu-rice together…which turned into a cup of tea together, which turned into me getting home around 11:00pm and falling into bed and falling asleep right away.