A culturally Korean wedding in Oklahoma, designed to be as low-fuss and simple as can be.
Grace + David // Norman, Oklahoma
Grace promised that she wouldn’t cry at her and David’s wedding, and though she did tear up three times, by the end she’d kept that promise. “The tears didn’t roll down my cheek, so it doesn’t count,” she told me cheerfully afterward. “I spent good money on my makeup. I wasn’t going to let it go to waste.”
The first tears were of comfort, security, like that of knowing a best friend across the world is only a “Hey, can we talk?” text away. Grace and David’s pastor was near the end of his sermon, a 30 minute message about remembering two faiths in their marriage: faith that God had brought them together, and faith that God would always be there, no matter their future struggles. His words were a reminder to remember where they came from, where they were going, and how they would get there.
David and Grace making the promise of marriage
The second tears were of indebtedness, a sense of thanks, knowing though that mere thanks could never be enough. Grace and David bowed to their parents; deep, slow bows that hid their faces but left the emotion. Grace quickly embraced her sobbing mom before she had time to notice her own watery eyes.
Grace and David bowing to her parents
The third tears were of ticklishness, of not the belly, but the heart. Grace and David’s first moments of marriage, after the pastor’s pronouncement that they were now husband and wife, had been spent thanking others through song, word, and prayer. When the recessional finally came, Grace and David laughed as they watched everyone try their hardest to give them a grand exit, frantically blowing the bubbles passed out before the ceremony.
Grace and David leaving down the aisle
(David, meanwhile, hadn’t forced such restraint; his puffy eyes made quick evidence that he let his tears flow freely throughout.)
David wiping away tears
I’d landed in Oklahoma a few nights before, having been invited to photograph Grace and David’s wedding in exchange for a plane ticket home. Grace was an old friend from high school, and this was both a chance to reconnect with her and to visit my parents.
As I drove down to Grace and David’s church, where they would be getting married, I thought of what felt familiar about my home state, and what felt new. Some things that I’d forgotten about felt routine again soon enough; the sparse buildings, the lack of trees, the trusting demeanor of everyday people. But where Oklahoma used to mean both “home” and “where I grew up,” now it was only the latter. It’d been two years since I last visited, during which time I’d graduated college, started my first job, and then left that job to travel the country for this project. The transition felt salient.
Grace and David’s church, one of the only in the area to serve Korean worshippers, was a single-story brick building, surrounded by grass that the December winter had faded to a pale yellow. Beyond the foyer that greeted my entrance was the sanctuary, flanked by smaller rooms for private prayer and worship. Further along was a kitchen, fellowship hall, nursery, and Bible study classrooms.
Video of the quiet area surrounding the church
The starchy smell of cooking rice provided a clue as to where I’d find people, and sure enough Grace’s parents were in the kitchen, heating up colorful trays of red kimchi, brown bulgogi, and translucent japchae noodles to serve after the ceremony. I gave them both a big hug; in addition to going to high school with Grace, I’d also known her sister, Sarah, from many years of shared orchestra rehearsals. We both played violin (she much, much better than I), and were sometimes stand-partners.
Grace’s father and mother waving hello at me
They thanked me for coming, and I thanked them for welcoming me. I asked where Grace and David were. “They’re in the back rooms prepping. Just follow the hallway.”
Grace was just finishing up her hair and makeup when I arrived. “I don’t really want photos of me getting ready,” she’d told me on our first call. David was getting ready in the room next door, and came in and out to check on Grace; they agreed a "first look” wasn’t necessary.
David putting on his suit before the wedding
The start of a wedding day invariably exudes feelings of blitz, hustle, even chaos, but being here with Grace and David felt nothing but calming.
Where couples often find disagreement in wedding planning, Grace and David found almost none. Their priorities were clear from the start: both wanted a wedding that glorified God first, their families second, their guests third, and themselves a very, very distant fourth.
Planning a culturally Korean wedding usually begins and ends with the parents’ desires; marriage is seen as not the union of two individuals, but of two families, who end up having a lot of sway in the decision-making process. The majority of guests are often the parents’ own friends, rather than the couple’s.
None of this was possible in Grace and David’s case. David’s parents live in South Korea, and the first time they met Grace’s parents was on the day of the wedding. But even if it had been possible, the wedding would’ve likely been much the same. As David told me, “Our parents told us to plan however we wanted, and I think we learned another reason why Grace and I are so compatible after talking to them about wedding planning. They share very similar values and approaches.” In South Korea, it’s traditional for families to give congratulatory money to the bride and groom, and sometimes people think of their weddings as a chance to get back all the money they’ve given away before. Some of David’s family friends in South Korea even outright suggested they host the wedding in South Korea for this exact reason, but David protested, and his parents agreed with him.
The entire wedding, David and Grace decided instead, would be held in their church in Oklahoma, and the date was picked so that David’s family could most easily travel from South Korea. The ceremony would be the focus, and the short reception afterwards would be dinner in the church’s fellowship hall, with no formalities like speeches, cake cutting, or dancing. Grace and David both refrained from inviting friends who would have to travel from out of state, so as not to impose pressure to spend time and money on them. Their guests would be almost entirely members of the church or local community.
The empty sanctuary hall, where the ceremony was held
The actual wedding would be more modern than traditional, again for ease and cost, though they did keep some traditions for their guests. The two would greet everyone in the traditional way, David with his and Grace’s parents at the front door, and Grace in her own room, called a Daegisil, or waiting room, surrounded by flowers and the subject of plenty of photos. “It’s like you’re put on display as a zoo animal,” Grace lamented. As someone who generally dislikes taking photos of herself, she would enjoy this part of the day the least.
The empty Daegisil room where Grace would be greeting guests
Where something didn’t seem practical, they left it out. The two thought about wearing the traditional Korean Hanbok, but decided it’d cost too much to wear just one time. Grace’s mom made her veil from $17 of Hobby Lobby materials, and the flats she wore were the same ones she’d worn to high school prom years ago. David’s suit was bought off-the-shelf from a local department store the week before.
One of Grace’s family friends took care of their flowers for free, I flew in to take photos, and despite having no other availabilities, the hair and makeup artists from Dallas happened to be free that Saturday morning. “Everything sort of just came together. We were so grateful, that God was helping us along so much,” David commented, his voice full of genuine thankfulness.
Family friends cutting up and arranging flowers
As Sarah, Grace’s older sister and best friend through life, describes it, “Grace was never looking for ‘her man’. David just kind of showed up.” The two met at church, the same one as where they held their wedding, towards the end of Grace’s time in college and the beginning of David’s time as a petroleum engineering PhD student. They saw each other at a twice-weekly Bible study, and found that they not only shared a lot of interests, but also values on faith and family.
Grace was born in South Korea, a year after her older sister Sarah. The two have always been best friends, a relationship likely fostered by their parents as much as their own affinity towards one another. “Parents often compare kids or pick favorites, but mom and dad didn’t do that with us,” Grace told me. They’re goofy around each other, and neither recalls ever really fighting with the other.
Grace (left) and her sister Sarah (right)
Their lives in South Korea were secure; the family was neither wealthy nor poor, and Grace and Sarah’s memories from their early years were happy. Their father worked an office job, and their mother ran a piano school, filling every empty space in their apartment with pianos. The decision to move was not due to some pressing need to leave South Korea, but of a new opportunity in the United States: a family friend was looking for an accompanist and Sunday school teacher at a Korean church in Oklahoma, and Grace’s mom decided to take the job.
Grace and her father in South Korea. They used to go to the beach a lot there
The family moved in October of 2001, and Grace adjusted quickly to her new environment. “You’re louder than the American kids,” she recalled her mom saying to her after watching a performance of the school’s Christmas play. Her reaction was opposite that of her sister's. “I didn’t say anything the entire first year. Some people thought I was mute,” Sarah told me. “I was cautious, and needed to be sure of myself before opening up. Grace didn’t care.”
Grace soon after she’d moved to the US
Things were financially stable for the first few years the family lived in the US. The family sold everything in South Korea before moving to the US, and paid the entirety of the first year’s rent ($350/month) in cash. A few years later, Grace’s dad bought a local gas station so he could run his own business, working 12 hours a day, 7 days a week, for years. The only time he took a substantial break was to visit his ailing mother back in South Korea, 12 years after moving to the US.
Grace and Sarah both helped their parents with translating daily life, and quickly developed a greater sense of the “adult” world. “We had to grow up faster and experience things that a kid usually doesn’t need or want to experience,” Grace told me. “There were a lot of frustrating times when I would be translating, and both parties would direct their anger or frustration at me since they were relying on me for communication. My parents also discussed finances, and I learned early how hard they had to work to provide for me and my sister.”
Grace paused. “But in a way, it was also beautiful. We developed a certain relationship with our parents that was more equal. We each recognized we had to help each other.”
Despite helping her parents a lot, Grace admitted there was still so much she didn’t know about what they went through. She experienced some of the effects of greater financial insecurity when the gas station business was going through a rough patch in the early 2010’s, like having difficult conversations about paying for college, but she knew she was also often shielded from the worst. “Immigrant children can sometimes be blind to the sacrifice of their parents,” she suggested.
The few times Grace has asked about their reasons for immigrating to the US, her parents have brushed her off. “I just got a job, so we moved,” Grace’s mother apparently said, though Grace is skeptical that was the real reason. When she graduated from college, an uncle of hers mentioned, “Make sure you thank your parents; they sacrificed their youth for you to be here.”
When it came to school and extracurriculars, Grace’s parents focused more on the process than the outcome. “They praised the hard work you did, not the result,” Grace told me. “They wanted us to do well, but also didn’t push us to do things we didn’t want to do.” When she and Sarah were disciplined, it was usually because of not practicing their instruments. Having run a piano school in South Korea, their mom had a very low tolerance for half-ass practice. They were also very strict about teaching them to have an understanding of Korean language and culture, and of faith, occasionally at the same time; Grace and Sarah both remember practicing their written Korean by copying verses from the Bible, and the family only spoke Korean at home. The result was a fluency and comfort with Korean that few others who grew up in the US have.
As Grace and Sarah got older, their personalities switched. “Sarah used to be the totally quiet one, while I was loud and social, but these days, Sarah is the social butterfly, while I prefer to stay home, and run in very small circles,” Grace said. Part of it was just how close she was with Sarah. “Even though I used to be loud, I’ve always only liked having a few close friends. For a while, I thought, ‘There’s no way any other friendship can be better than the one I have with Sarah.’”
David’s upbringing was similar in important ways. He grew up in Gangjin, a peaceful and secluded countryside town of 35,000 at the southern tip of the South Korean peninsula. Translated, it literally means “convenient ferry port.” He, alongside his younger sister, lived in a small old house that their parents rented. “They wanted to buy a home, but instead they put all the money towards feeding me and my sister, or paying for our educations.” His parents would usually work from 9am to past midnight every day, in physically demanding jobs as tailors or restauranteurs. Like Grace, he saw them constantly working hard for him and his sister.
Compared to his friends, David lived a rather free life when it came to career decisions. “They were patient supporters of my life,” he said, “and never pressured me to pursue certain professions like medicine or law. Every time we talked about my career path, they said ‘work as what you like.’” David was a naturally introverted child, preferring activities done alone, like painting or watching cartoons, partly because he sometimes felt ashamed by his financial background. “But my kind friends never cared. Some of my most precious memories are the uneventful days, spent just talking or playing games or sports.” He paused, and smiled. “Well, actually there wasn’t much more we could do.” I understood the sentiment well; he’d likened much of his environment with that of suburban Oklahoma, where I’d grown up.
David with his mother
Because Korean marriage culture revolves around the notion that a wedding is not just the joining of a man and woman (same-sex marriage is not just taboo, it is outright illegal) but the joining of their families, there is an intense cultivation of pseudo-arranged marriages. Families, often with the help of professional matchmakers, will arrange first dates between their children, taking into consideration not just personalities but also financial, social, educational, and occupational backgrounds. Finding a spouse (especially as a man) can thus be more about presenting what tangible benefits you can offer to the other person and their family, rather than about being compatible and willing to mutually support and love one another.
David didn’t have many photos from his childhood, and the ones he did have were mostly left in South Korea when he moved to the US. Here’s one of the few he did have
The culture, as with many things, is being “westernized” over time, with love marriages (closer to what we’re familiar with in the US) being more accepted, but these kinds of “arranged” marriages are still very common. Weddings are also used as a way to show off wealth, status, and the perception of happiness between the couple.
David was never a fan of this situation; that he’d have to present himself as the money, stability, or comfort he could offer, rather than as simply who he was, felt disingenuous. “For my entire life, I disagreed with this common notion, but I couldn’t find another person who had the same perspective.” He wanted to meet someone who loved him for him, not just what he could provide, and in Grace he found that, and much more. The two, for example, both prefer spending time at home over going out. They care little about material objects, like clothes or technology, and when they do splurge they do so on Korean restaurants. They deeply understand the value of financial stability, and the work required to gain that stability. They each grew up faster than their peers.
David and Grace at the latter’s Master’s graduation
Most importantly though, they shared a strong focus on their faiths and their identities as Christians. Both grew up in Christian households, but for much of their childhoods only went to church to see friends or follow family habits. Only when they got to the church—the one where they held their wedding—did each of them make their own decision to follow a life of faith. The church became their primary community. “I came to the US before starting my PhD to meet with my academic advisor, and even though it was just the first time meeting everyone [at the church], they sincerely cared for me and sympathized with my problems of moving from South Korea,” David said. Grace added, “I had a lot of semester friends in college, people whom you’d be friends with for a semester and then never really see again. But the people at church, I’ve been around for years now. You go through so much together, that you just get closer and closer to them and the community.”
Those of us who haven’t ever experienced faith in the context of a positive community may be hard pressed to see what the appeal and the draw is. Religion as a whole can just feel like rules written thousands of years ago. But just as there are negative anecdotes of people falling out of faith—a bad church, a bad pastor, a bad “friend”—so there are also positive ones as well, as Grace and David’s story heartwarmingly shows—a good church, a good pastor, a good “friend.”
David and Grace’s decision to get married was a quick one. They started dating towards the end of her senior year in undergrad and his first year as a PhD student, and David proposed exactly a year later. The two were long-distance almost immediately, with Grace leaving to the east coast for a year to pursue a Master’s, but they had marriage in mind from the beginning. “The best qualities we saw in each other were ones we were looking for in our future spouses before we started dating,” they both told me.“Once we were sure of the fact that this person was the right person, there really was no point in waiting to get married.”
Grace told me the story of the proposal. “David writes me letters every month ever since we've been together. On our 1 year anniversary, I gave him my present the day before, and asked him where my May letter was. He said he would give it to me the day of. The next day, I was really tired, so I wanted to go home, but David wanted to go to a park to take a walk. We sat down at this bench, and he gave me the letter, and in it he talked about how he was ready to take the next step in our relationship and asked if he could live the rest of his life as my husband. After I finished reading the letter, I looked up and he was waiting holding the ring. He knew I would hate a lavish proposal and stuff, so he said he wanted to keep it simple, which was good.”
A photo Grace took of David moments before he proposed; she hadn’t known it was about to happen
The rest of the wedding proceeded with the same kind of calm with which it started. It was December but sunny, and so the temperature hovered in a tolerable low 50’s. We did a quick round of photos right outside the church before scurrying back inside.
Photos from the outdoor photoshoot with the wedding party
The ceremony was entirely in Korean, and for the few of us in the room who didn’t speak, a slide show signaled what section we were in. But the display was irrelevant to me; photographs don’t need sound to communicate emotion, after all, and with songs you can still hear the feelings, even if you can’t understand the words.
Photos and videos of the ceremony
I did still need some help, though, directing people after the ceremony; David’s best man helped me translate as I wrangled the larger group photos. I offered to do more with family outside where the sun was shining a perfect golden-hour yellow, but they waved the suggestion away, preferring the photos be in front of the altar and the cross.
Grace and David with their pastor (behind) and church friends
Grace’s mom changed almost immediately out of her Hanbok and into casual clothes again to help serve people dinner in the fellowship hall a few steps away. She even prepared a plate for me, and Grace and David insisted I stop taking photos of the reception and just enjoy the food and fellowship. I happily ignored them for a few more minutes; as genuine as they were in saying they didn’t need more photos, I thought they’d still appreciate them in the coming years and decades.
Photos from the very simple reception. Grace was especially proud of the $70 cake purchased at Costco
A few weeks after the wedding, I got on the phone with Grace to catch up on how the first few weeks of married life had been treating her. She’d had to reschedule the conversation because of a fever the week before, and when I asked how she was feeling now, she said she felt better but…
“I’m actually pregnant.” I hadn’t realized they’d decided to have a kid so early. “This was honestly, like, a complete surprise,” Grace said, smirking. “We’ve been married for what, five weeks, and I’m four weeks pregnant. So it happened… really quickly.” Their best friends at the church, another young married couple, had tried to have kids for a while, so they’d expected the same to happen to them.
Ultrasound a few months into Grace’s pregnancy
I asked about how they were now thinking about the future, with a baby on the way. “We talk a lot now about the values we want to instill in our kids, and one of the biggest ones is family. We want them to be surrounded by it.” She noted that English was going to be banned in their home; she couldn’t imagine a world where her kids are unable to speak with her parents, and the same was true for David.
The two hadn’t planned a honeymoon after the wedding, opting instead to spend the time hanging out with David’s parents, who’d stayed a few more days before flying back to South Korea. Grace and David also explained that they felt planning a honeymoon alongside a wedding would just be stressful. “It’s just another way for the wedding industry to take my hard earned money,” she asserted. “Why not plan a trip later, when we’re less stressed?”
David has a few more years of his PhD in Oklahoma, and after that the plan to go wherever he can get a job. “We have lots of family in Texas, and Sarah is there too. Plus there are a lot of Korean people and it wouldn’t be too far away from home.” Grace’s parents are also planning on moving soon, having started the process of selling their gas station business. Her father was just tired, and Grace thought he deserved a break. “It’d be nice if we all wound up there, together.”
