Korea! 대한민국

To start my blog, I want to share one of my most unique experiences as a photographer!

My wife, Marissa, and I traveled to South Korea to photograph Haebin & Anthony’s wedding! When we arrived, Haebin and Anthony gave us a tour of the small but amazing country! Our first stop was for some food! Airplane food didn’t fill me up for a 15 hour flight. Of course, bits of America were always around, even in a small country like South Korea. So we had some good KFC to start with.

However, we had to try some real authentic Korean cuisine. We cooked our own steak! Haebin fixed this awesome steak meal wrapped in spinach leaves. It was very spicy and hot, but very yummy!

We toured the city and a Korean mime/clown on stilts found us! More like, we saw him coming a mile away and he couldn’t even hide behind the banner. Anthony’s sister didn’t know what he was or what he was doing. She had never seen a person on stilts before! Imagine trying to explain that to someone. Needless to say, she was rather frightened when we first saw him. However, he made a balloon animal to make her happy!

We also got to see Gyeongbok Palace, a huge palace in Seoul. It was just like a scene from a movie.

Anthony and I had some fun being ninjas!

The girls unleashed their inner-tiger.

The lighting was very cool when we were at the palace so I asked Lauren to take a picture of me and Marissa.

I was amazed with the landscape, plant life and urban architecture. I thought it would be so cool to fit in some engagement and bridal photos the day before the wedding at some of these neat locations. We took some engagement photos at first. Then we sent Anthony away and Haebin pulled her wedding dress out of a bag! We took some bridal photos in a beautiful park in the city.

Check out the cool structure in the background!

You can tell Haebin and Anthony always have fun together!

They also have their sweet and peaceful moments resting in each others arms.

Haebin is blessed to have someone who can also be romantic in addition to funny and a lot of fun to be with.

And now for a quick change of clothes. Oh look, now she’s wearing a wedding dress 5 minutes later!

We took pictures in a quiet spot on this bridge… not really. It was bustling with school children, tourists and locals. We had to snap a picture or two in between everyone walking back and forth. Some people even came up and asked if she was a model while I was taking pictures . Watch out Korea’s Next Top Model!

This was the coolest gazebo I have ever seen! I loved all the colors!

Haebin and Anthony’s wedding was half traditional and half modern. It was very unique! There was a lot of bowing involved.

Anthony had to say his vows in Korean. That must have been hard to memorize!

Look at the happy newlyweds!

The traditional part of the wedding comes next. They like to bow many times.

After bowing, both sets of parents toss dates into a sheet and the newlyweds will catch them. They symbolize how many children the newlyweds will have.

Then the groom puts the dates in his mouth and the bride pulls them from his teeth. However, Anthony obviously didn’t know what was going on. He was surprised when the ladies were trying to put one in his mouth to help him out.

Now he’s got it!

The final thing to do is for the groom to carry the bride around on his back (not really, they were just having fun).

The traditional clothing was really awesome and colorful!

It was not only an honor to photograph and be a part of Haebin and Anthony’s wedding in Korea, we also got to photograph their wedding in the United States. It was a wonderful wedding on a beautiful lake! Here is a quick look at how full of joy they were during this wedding as well!