Catching Up
The closer I get to the Big Day, the more manic my life becomes. First we had to go to the immigration office in Seoul with the marriage certificate on a Friday morning to get my marriage/residency visa, only to be told that we had to go to Incheon immigration office instead. Songsu made a lot of effort to find out exactly what was required of us, but they failed to mention on the phone that we have to go to an immigration office in the same city or area that is written on his ID card. Songsu's ID card has an Incheon address rather than our Bundang address on it because when he tried to change it he was told that an 'officetel' address is not a real address. This meant we had to drive to Incheon, a week later to apply for the visa. Thankfully, after two weeks of waiting I got my visa.Two weekends ago we drove to Incheon to try on the wedding dresses at the wedding hall. It was hard to choose because they all fitted and looked so pretty, but between my friend, Songsu's mother and aunt we finally picked out one. After that the make-up artist and hairdresser practiced my hair and make-up ready for the wedding. It was hard to convince Songu's mother that wearing a pink pallette may look fantastic on a Korean girl, but it makes Western girls look cheap. She still isn't happy with my final choice of make up.
Also Songsu and I have been looking at wedding rings. In the UK the engagement ring has stones, but the wedding ring is usually quite a simple design. In Korea however the wedding rings look like British engagement rings, which means that we have to look at the 'couple rings' for our wedding rings. Besides, Songsu would rather gorge his own eyes out than wear a ring with big fat diamonds in it.
Tomorrow we will go to Incheon yet again to try on the wedding hanboks (Korean traditional dress), visit Songsu's mother's friend's jewelry shop to look for wedding rings, and meet with the priest in order to organise the script for the wedding- a nightmare seeing as we are mixing cultures and languages.
This week we have finally been able to give out the wedding invitation cards that Songsu designed, along with instuctions for our guests.
For a long time I did not feel excited about getting married. Certainly having to do all these doucments has taken the romance out of it. Only when I tried on the wedding dress did I start to feel excited about the wedding, but most of the time I swing between stress and apathy. I want it all to be over and then we can just get on with our lives together, hopefully in UK ( another round of stress applying for his UK visa). However I am looking forward to the honeymoon...lying on a beach for a week stress-free is a luxury I have not experienced in about 5 years.
posted by Louise @ 11:38 pm
