On September 3rd, 2009, after months of thoroughly analyzing the pros and cons of marriage (let alone marriage in Korea), my bestest friend and I decided to officially end our engagement and just tie the knot. This decision, of course, was made about three days before the actual nuptials took place. We eloped.
We had to go to Seoul for the occasion, as America doesn't seem to find it necessary to have an embassy in Busan, and had an all day trek around the city in lieu of an actual ceremony. We started at the US embassy for me to sign an affidavit claiming I wasn't already married, then had to make our way over to the Canadian embassy to do the same for Ken (of course, we got ourselves and an unsuspecting taxi driver good and lost before we finally located Canada in Korea, which turned out to be a mere ten minute walk from the US embassy.... argh). After that bit of paperwork was taken care of, we had to make the trek to the city ward's office where the actual marriage was processed. I thought we would have to say vows in Korean or something, but instead they just called our number (34), told us to sign on this line and that line, stamped a stamp on the document and offered their blase congratulations. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is what made us married. Lucky for us, the city ward's office happened to offer a service for newly weds only on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and September 3rd just happened to be a Thursday. This was their service:
When we were told about this opportunity we naturally assumed that they would pull us into a separate room to have all of this silliness done. But that didn't happen. Instead, they ushered us over to the corner of the busy ward's office and proceeded to dress us right there in front of about 40 people. Koreans are notorious for their bad staring/gawking habits as it is so, needless to say, this was a bit embarrassing.
After our "wedding" at the ward's office, we had to make it official with our own countries by going back to both embassies to have the wedding certificate looked at (I'm not really sure what they did with it, as no apparent changes were made to the document).
And that's what it took for Ken to become Mr. Elizabeth McClintic and for me to become an ajumma.
2 comments:
Congrats! Sounds like a long, but memorable day! Are you guys planning to return home next year?
Hmmm...as an ajumma are you now expected to smack people and scream at them? I suppose that could be a stress-reliever. Wait a minute! I thought you had to earn your stripes as an ajumma by attaining middle-age. Are you considered middle-aged in Korean years?
I must say I'm disappointed that you and Ken didn't combine your names and become the McMundays. It has such a nice ring to it.
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