Our Pre-Wedding Photos! - 웨딩찰영

A few weeks ago, we went to a photography studio to get our pre-wedding photos taken. It's a concept we don't have in America (although we do take engagement photos, they are usually taken outside and are not as posed) but I have always wanted to do it.

In Korea, taking pre-wedding photos is basically a must. The wedding day is usually quick and stressful for the couple, who has to greet lots of family members, and there isn't really time for lovey-dovey photos of the two of them. Our wedding will be a traditional Korean wedding, so I won't be wearing a white dress. However, I still wanted to get my pictures done with Junkyu in proper Western style wedding attire.

He used to think that whatever we don't have in America, I wouldn't care to do, but I told him that the things that I don't get to do in America but are a part of Korean culture are the things I want to do the most. When I told him I wanted to take pre-wedding photos, he was surprised I knew about the concept.

We found a great studio and made an appointment for the day before Valentine's Day. The photoshoot took about 8 hours in total. We got there, chose what kind of concepts we wanted for our pictures, I chose three wedding dresses, and then we got into hair and makeup. I was put into my first dress and taken upstairs to meet our photographer.

I was told by the staff members that it would be funny to pretend like I couldn't speak Korean, but watching the photographer fumble in English was too hard to watch. After we told him I can speak Korean, he was relieved. There were a few times when I didn't understand him, so Junkyu would tell me what to do, but by the end of the photoshoot he was used to telling me "Chin down, look here," and the like.

He was a great photographer, and even before the photos were edited, they looked glamorous. I had a really sweet lady who was my assistant getting into and out of dresses, and we had fun while we were there, although it was exhausting. I changed into a mini dress at one point, and then into a red party dress. In total, I wore 5 dresses, but we forgot to bring out hanbok, so we couldn't get any pictures in them.

Towards the end, we wore our couple tee shirts and jeans for the "casual" concept. All of the pictures were really beautiful, even the simple ones. We took about 450+ photos, and we could only choose 20 for our album. One of those will be blown up large and framed, and three others will be framed in smaller frames as well.

The largest frame is usually what people bring to their wedding ceremony, to place outside the room they are getting married in, to let friends and family know where they are. This is because many weddings are done in wedding "halls" where hundreds of couples get married in the same building on the same day. Without the couple's picture, it would be hard to tell where to go as a guest.

We went back to the studio a few weeks later to choose which 20 we liked best to put in our album and have framed. However, it felt wrong to just choose 20, so Junkyu bought all the files of all the pictures we took. Even though only 20 of them are edited, the others look beautiful just how they are. Korean people love photoshop, though.

We got the 20 pictures that we chose to have edited back, and we are still waiting to get the frames and album. I'm excited to see how everything turns out in physical form. Our wedding is just a few weeks away, and we are so excited!