Family and kin) Semi-professional wedding 'churye'

An interesting and funny article of being a wedding ceremony master (officiator) in Ohmynews, written by a man of advantaged age whose main occupation after retiring was wedding ceremony master (churye); now that he has moved from Seoul to his home place he stands as a wedding officiator only occasionally. He ended up working for certain wedding halls as the wedding halls started offering officiator services on top of everything else. Normally it’s the work of the couple or their families to invite a prominent person to officiate in the wedding, but as wedding halls are reserved before the officiator is invited, it’s easy for the wedding halls to offer their own officiator instead. The couple pays 100 000 won, and the churye gets 50-70 000 and the wedding hall keeps the rest. During the peak seasons in spring and fall, this professional officiator could net a nice sum on a weekend, have free meals in the wedding hall buffet and even invite friends over. Interesting episodes are those of officiating in fake weddings. There was this woman who was supposed to be an old spinster with an orphan background, but who turned out to be a married woman, who had gotten into a huge debt with her drinking place and had seduced a rich customer to marry her to get her debts paid. And there was a bachelor business-keeper (chayôngôpcha) who had only been giving his congratulation monies (ch’ugûigûm) to others, and wanted know to get back some for himself. He talked a bar girl to set up a fake wedding with him, on a riverside with a samul band and all. He pocketed all the congratulation money and is living as an old bachelor (noch’onggak) somewhere in the mountains. Pictures of wedding halls He himself has ended up starting the wedding process in the wrong hall, until the real officiator has turned up, and he went to the place he was supposed to be, making up an excuse of getting stuck in the traffic. Or when he officiated to weddings at the same time, starting one 5 minutes early telling that he needs to go somewhere else and making it short, and going directly downstairs and making a traffic excuse again. What should a good officiating speech be like? Shortly, short. Making it short is best for the couple. He himself makes it look like he has memorized the speech, but he has short notes on a slip of paper, and with his experience knows how to talk in a fluent and concise manner. (Personal experiences of being a guest in Korean weddings are left out this time; especially that of going to a right wedding hall at the wrong time, and all that stuff.) Categories at del.icio.us/hunjang: family/kin • Koreanculture