My name is Sara and my new hubby and I got married on March 20, 2010 in Seoul, South Korea. It was such a fun and crazy day! 

We did a western ceremony, then a traditional Korean ceremony, a big reception for all the guests, then a small reception in the evening at a gorgeous restaurant for just family.  

Then we took an amazing honeymoon in Phuket, Thailand.

Now we're busily planning for our American reception on July 17th.  I'll be busily editing my bio and putting up new pics of the wedding and all the new planning as I go.   

 (p.s. Tutorials are at the bottom of the page.)

Although we were planning the wedding for several months, my FI never officially got to propose until Christmas day, 2009.  He had asked my parents permission, and even bought a ring, but he had to return to Korea rather suddenly.  So he never got to propose.  He offered to propose over Skype, but I just really didn't want that at all.  I didn't want to tell my children that their father proposed over the internet.  I just didn't. lol!

So I arrived in Korea on Christmas morning after being apart for over 5 months, and that night he took me to one of the most beautiful restaurants I have ever been to.  It's called Toh Lim, and it's on the top floor of the Lotte World Hotel in Seoul.  You can take the observatory elevator up, that lets you look out over the whole city, and once we got there, the entry way and halls were lined with lots of fresh red rose petals and glass globes with floating candles.  There were rose petals and candles everywhere in the restaurant. 

Our table was by these huge windows that looked out over the city, and it was beautiful.  We had an amazing eight course meal, and although it wasn't a surprise by any means when he pulled out the ring and asked me to marry him, it was still so special.  I can't even remember everything he said to me, I was just so happy that I could finally be officially engaged to my sweety, to finally see him again after 5 long months on the other side of the world, and to finally wear my beautiful ring.  Here are a couple pictures of the restaurant (our table, and the really cool ceiling), and one of me outside by all the pretty twinkly lights wearing my loverly ring. :)

Here is my beautiful blue sapphire ring.  I just adore it.  It's perfect, absolutely perfect, in my favorite color, blue.  And a sapphire symbolizes love, truth, fidelity, and I also read that it is a symbol of heaven and of devotion to God.  All of that makes it extra special to me.  

Edit:  I took some new pictures today!  In the ring box, and my piano, and on our song's piano music. :)

It took me forever to convince him that I didn't want a diamond.  I really didn't want an engagement/wedding ring set.  I want to have bands that coordinate.  I want what we wear to go well together.  Maybe one with diamonds and skinnier for my band, and bigger with no stones for his.  Something unique, something special.  We will pick them out in Korea, and I can wear this for special occasions on my right hand. :)

I knew even before we got engaged that I wanted us to have wedding rings that coordinate, but don't match exactly.  I didn't want to wear my engagement ring with it, I just wanted a band, simple, and pretty. 

Well, when I was in Korea for Christmas to see my FI and his family, they took us to a REALLY nice department store and headed straight for the jewelry floor.  Designer stores everywhere!  And they told us to start shopping.  Wow....I've never bought designer..well, anything!  I didn't quite know what to think.  I said it was ok, that we didn't have to get designer rings, but they would not be swayed.  So we ended up choosing a set at the first place we visited, Bvlgari.  And here they are! 

I do love them.  Platinum, 5 .25 carat stones in mine, 1 .25 carat stone in his.  They are simple, elegant, modern, and lovely!

Here is my dress! I went in just to try some things on and get an idea of what looks good on me, and this was the second dress I tried on.  I almost didn't pull it too!  I thought it was too similar looking to the one I picked out first, but once they were out of the bag, it was very different actually.  I just adore it to bits!

It's an ivory Anjolique with a beautiful lace shrug and a detachable train.  It has a train underneath this one too, but this one gives it a little more va-va-voom. ;) 

I am also wearing my mother's pearls.  But these aren't just any pearls.  When my father was young, he saved up and bought his mother (my grandmother) a lovely string of real pearls.  She gave them to my mother for her wedding day, and now I will walk down the aisle in them too!

I am so happy with the versatility, elegance, and richness of this dress.  I don't need to shop for months and try on 8,000 gowns.  First trip out, 2nd dress...and that's the one!

Ok, so it is not easy to find pictures of the wedding hall inside of this place.  I would love to find pictures of the hall, the room for the pyebaek ceremony, and the reception, but I just can't.  It's hard enough trying to navigate the site without knowing a lot of Korean. lol!  But here's what I found!  This is the building, in Songpa, Seoul:

Update!

I got to visit the church while I was there for the Christmas holiday and took some pictures of the sanctuary where the ceremony will be held.  There were people there, so I just took a couple quick snaps.  It has kind of an old world sort of feel to it, and it will be covered in flowers for the wedding, so I hear.

I'm not going to upload the pics of the pyebaek room, because right now, it's not decorated properly, as they use it for a preschool room as well.  For the wedding it will have lovely painted screens, a small table, and lovely gold dishes for the tea ceremony.  Right now though, it has children's toys in it. lol!

Ok, so having the ceremony in Korea puts me in a bit of a pickle.  I won't speak the same language as the hairsylists around, and I am very picky.  So that means I have to learn how to do it myself...I am trying this.

Here's what I've found here on PW to help inspire me.  I know I want a low chignon, with flowers, or a pin, or something like that above it.  I think I will have to have a veil too, but I'm not sure how to do that, since I want my hair to show off, and I have a lace shrug on my gown.  I think if I went without a veil it might cause an uproar over there. I'm already going without gloves (shudder).  They ALL wear gloves at weddings....even the groom, and the parents...everyone.  But I'm not doin it. lol 

So anyway! On to the hair ideas:

I adore this one so much, but I don't know if I can pull it off...my hair is NOT curly, and I don't even know where to start with this one...but that is my favorite one.  Here are some others I really like.

UPDATE!!!

I've been working on my own hair, and after 7 attempts, I think I've finally got it how I would like it! I still have to work on it, but this is the basic idea I am going to use.

The next time I try it I will take lots of pictures and do a tutorial if anyone else would like this curly messy romantic chignon look at home.  After curling my hair, this took about 10 minutes, and 11 bobbypins!  And it was so sturdy too!

UPDATE #2!!!

Ok, so I got my hair cut a while ago, and my stylist put a lot more hair in my shortest layer than before.  It looks great down, and all the ways I normally do my hair, but I couldn't get it into a chignon anymore.  Most of it was just too short, and I was pinning and pinning tons of short curls, and I just didn't like the look.  So when I was trying out my hair for my boudoir shoot this weekend, I decided that I think my hair will be down for the wedding now.  Here's how it came out, with my hair flower:

SHOES

I got my shoes this weekend! I knew I didn't want heels.  It is going to be a crazy day, and I want to be comfortable.  So after a very long search, I found these ADORABLE flats from dessy.com!  $36 with shipping! :)  I printed out the sizing guide from the website, because I heard they ran small, and do they ever!  It said I am a 9, and I am normally a 7.5.  I got them and they do fit, so I am happy.  The insides are really soft too, and I think I will get some shoe clips to glam them up a bit.

HAIR COMB

Ok, well this isn't a hair comb yet, but it will be! I got this gorgeous Sarah Coventry silver and pearl brooch online from rubylane.com for $15 with shipping, and it is fabulous.  Almost 3 inches across, and oh so pretty.  I will be adding a comb to it so I can wear it in my hair.  When I do this, I'll take step by step photos, if anyone else wants to see the DIY. :)

JEWELRY

I'm wearing my mother's necklace (seen above in the DRESS section) that she wore down the aisle, and I recently bought this bracelet and these earrings.

GARTER

I got this beautiful garter made from lolainlace on etsy.com.  She did such a beautiful job!  I couldn't be more thrilled with this gorgeous lil thing.  It's in champagne and ivory, with my new initials!

VEIL

I bought this amazingly gorgeous, and incredible soft ivory tulle online from a shop in England for a little over $60!  I am so excited to make my veil with it, and nervous too!

I ordered these Korean Mandarin Wedding Ducks made out of celedon to use as our cake topper, and I love them!

Celedon is a traditional Korean pottery that is a pretty greenish blue color. 

Mandarin ducks are a classic symbol of Korean weddings and are pretty much always incoporated into weddings there.  They mate for life, are peaceful, and have lots of offsping. haha!  Plenty of reasons for them to be a nice symbol of togetherness.  After the wedding, the couple will display their ducks in their home.  If the couple is happy, they put the ducks nose to nose, if they are having a tiff, they could be turned tail to tail.  But no matter what, the ducks are always together.  And if one person wants to end a fight, they could point to their wedding ducks.  I think that's really cute.

I am basically in the dark when it comes to most of the planning of my big fat Korean wedding, but today I got to see our invitations, and I was really surprised!  I have seen a lot of invitation pictures from Korea, and most of them looked very plain to me.  His mother picked ours out, and they look kind of like American invitations.  Here they are!

I took the last names out, so that's why there are big white spaces on our names.  The left side has a map, and information on how to get there.  Bus lines, subway directions, and the church's number, as well as his parents' contact information.  The right side at the top says something like, "These two people met in God's love and are about to promise to be a family.  Please bless and pray they will have a happy family."  It then lists my FI's parents' names and "their son", then my parents' names and "their daughter" then my name.  Then at the bottom it lists the date and time and the location.

And that's that!

We just booked our honeymoon!  I am so excited!  This is going to be one amazing trip.  We're going to.......... PHUKET THAILAND!

I'm giddy with excitement.  We're going for 7 days, and leaving the morning after my parents go back to the states.  We're staying at this 4 star resort hotel first:

And then we're spending the rest of the honeymoon HERE!  Our private pool villa looking out over the ocean!

This place is so gorgeous! I can't wait to go! We're doing so many cool things on our trip too!

• 2 and a half hour couples massage
• lots of romantic dinners (all our meals are included)
• island touring
• snorkling, scuba diving, and banana boating
• shopping in the city
• visiting a temple
• an elephant ride through the jungle
• horseback riding on the beach

I can't wait!  All of our meals, activities, accomodations and flight are included, for $2,700!  Crazy awesome.  It probably helps that we're leaving from Korea, so the flight isn't as expensive as it would be from the states.  I  still think it's a great deal, for everything we're getting, it's unbelievable!

So when we are back in the states I think we will have a reception/wedding shower here.  We have a nice lush yard in the back, and it's pretty...so I was thinking of setting up a white tent and having tables back there, with a bit of an Asian theme in the mix too.  I want to do something like this, but with red lanterns.

These were basically our colors for the reception, lots of traditional Korean red and green and royal blue, with touches of ivory:

And I know I would like cupcakes, but instead of icing (cause most people including me just scrape it off anyway...) I thought maybe we could make red velvet cupcakes with yellow fondant, with a stamp that says 사랑해요 (I love you) in it or something. 

I also thought we could give little bamboo plants away for favors.  Either that or little tins with one of our favorite teas inside.  Lately I've been favoring the tea idea. :)

Korean Food I know I want:

Ddukbokki: 떡볶이

This is so delicious, words cannot describe it. haha!  It's rice cakes...kind of a doughy consistency, cooked and smothered in a sweet and spicy sauce.  I would love to have some of this at the reception.  People can pick them up with toothpicks or something...with a sign that says something like Caution: Extremely Spicy! or some kind of warning, because they need one, for sure. lol! 

And Kimbap: 김밥

It's kind of like sushi, but no raw meat, and a lot more vegetables.  It's really good, and great finger food too!

And we'll probably have some fancy rice cakes (떡) like these (found on Seouleats)

They are also made of rice, and are typical wedding desserts, filled with sweet things. :)

DIY Vintage Brooch Hair Comb

Here's the tutorial I made so you guys can make your own hair combs out of beautiful vintage brooches too!