“Thou art sad; get thee a wife, get thee a wife!”

If only having someone’s hand in marriage was as simple as Shakespeare put it.

What was once widely construed as the culmination of love and happiness, wedding ceremonies have become a commercialized extravaganza in Korea, often forcing couples to seek financial support from parents and take loans from banks. 


Down the long list of things to tick off for a wedding these days are dowry, a studio photoshoot, bridal gown rental, professional makeup and banquet hall reservation. This can all stack up to a sum that chokes up many eligible bachelors and bachelorettes. Not to mention the indistinguishable ceremonies being a let-down for those who beg to differ.

Amid growing concerns over the overheating wedding industry, some couples delay marriage until they are financially ready, while some diverge from the norm and opt for nuptials that are more personalized and affordable. One of the latter, Kim Young-woo and Ha Mi-hyo, decided to avoid the standardized package wedding and take matters into their own hands ― without the help of hotel caterers and Vera Wang dresses.

Self-pronounced travel addicts, Kim and Ha met each other for the first time in India in 2001. They dated for 11 years before finally deciding to tie the knot in December 2013. What set them apart from other couples was that instead of making a reservation for a cookie-cutter wedding hall, they booked flights for a 40 day-long trip to Latin America. Their self-wedding portraits taken against the arresting backdrops of Bolivia and Peru quickly drew the attention of other Korean couples.

In an interview with The Korea Herald, Kim and Ha likened conventional weddings to carnival cutouts, referencing the large stand-up paintings in amusement parks where people can stick their head out of the hole to get a body of a gorilla or Marilyn Monroe.

“We went to several weddings together where the bride and the groom didn’t appear to be enjoying their own ceremony. They were only putting up with the show because it was something everyone else was doing,” Kim said.

For Kim and Ha, newlywed couples faded into a pretty blur at identical wedding services. Seeing the picture-perfect weddings degraded into a cliche, the well-traveled couple mapped out their own wedding plan.

“We married to come up with an excuse to go to South America,” Ha said with a laugh.

“We reserved a room at a Japanese restaurant for our family, who were our only guests, and gave a presentation of photos from our dating years. My brother-in-law sang for us and our parents read us letters. Then we took off on a plane.”

The pared-down wedding was intimate and meaningful. Furthermore, it only cost what a regular meal for that number of people would.

But not everyone was supportive of their decision to forego the standard wedding. Ha’s two elder sisters, both married and one with children, were fretful.

“In the beginning they worried for us, saying that a bigger wedding has to take place to proclaim our lawful bondage. But we assured them that what other people thought of us didn’t matter with our happiness,” Kim said. “Since we didn’t have an overblown nuptial to declare our marriage, we had to at least have good photos to commemorate our union.”

Ha purchased a white minidress and veil, which cost her a moderate 100,000 won ($90), and wore it throughout the trip in front of monumental sites. In some locations, people handed her flowers to go with her bridal outfit.

The outcome was breathtaking photos of the couple at Bolivia’s Uyuni salt lake desert and Peru’s Machu Picchu, and snapshots around Colombia, Cuba, Ecuador, Chile and Argentina.

The couple said traveling together also led to unexpected situations, which enabled them to see each other in a new light, jointly tackle problems and build shared memories.

“After seeing our photos a friend of mine told me that he envied my wedding,” Kim said. “He too had wanted a smaller ceremony and an adventurous honeymoon, but he couldn’t convince his parents, nor his future wife.”

Kim said it requires a certain kind of courage to take a road less traveled, but blindly following someone else’s footsteps in the hopes of finding happiness is something to be wary of. “I’m not saying our way of a wedding is better. All I’m saying is that it’s important to live your life your way without being scared of what others will say,” he said.

The couple’s next joint dream is also directed toward a road less traveled: embarking on a trip around the world.

By Lim Jeong-yeo and Hong Hye-jin
(kaylalim@heraldcorp.com) (honghyejin@heraldcorp.com)