Jules and Matt's wedding

Hey guys,

Sorry I’ve been so horrifically lax in my journaling. I guess I was avoiding it because the task just seemed so large and daunting. So much to talk about I guess. So anyways, as you can tell, I’m going to start by talking about Matt and Julia’s wedding, which was a lot of fun. Also, you will notice that as of right now there are no pictures to accompany the entries. Well, there will be, its just that I’m at work, and it seemed easier to break up this task into chunks.

So, on Canada day, Mom, Dad and I headed to Changwon on the earliest bus in order to arrive approximately in time for my hair appointment. For those of you who don’t know, I was a part of Julia’s wedding party, as maid of honour and the officient of the ceremony, a role which I was happy/honoured/nervous to take.

So, after dropping my parents off at their hotel, Matt and I headed to the hair salon to meet the other girls. It was such a girlie thing, to hang out with a bunch of women in a salon for a few hours whilst preparing for a wedding, lots of fun. So then, we went back to Jules and Matt’s apartment to get dressed. The was a definite concern about the dresses, as I hadn’t tried mine on until that day, and Julie hadn’t tried hers on until the day before. But miraculously, all three dresses fit all three girls perfectly… Somehow…

So after dressing, and getting our makeup done, we headed to the pagoda in a beautiful park where the ceremony was to be held. Jules and Matt’s boss was late, so the ceremony was delayed. I was pretty nervous, because I’m introverted, which makes me (at times) a weak public speaker. But finally, the ceremony began, and things went off rather well… Except that I messed up the tying of the binding cords. Oh yeah, Jules and Matt got married in a handfasting ceremony of the Celtic spiritual tradition. It was a very personal, beautiful, and unique ceremony. Matt sang and played his guitar for Jules, which was so sweet, and despite the rain, everyone stayed dry under the pagoda.

After the ceremony, we headed for dinner at an exhibition center kind of place. I can’t remember the names of anything, I’m afraid, though I don’t suppose that’s the point. We had a delicious steak dinner with smoked salmon appetizers and carrot soup and crab salad and scallops… It was amazing… After dinner, there were pictures, then us bridesmaids went and changed, as we didn’t want to go dancing tripping over our trains.

Then, it was off to O’Brian’s, Changwon’s local foreigner pub for their Canada day celebrations. Mom (who did a great job taking photos all day) and Dad, (whose airplane shirt Julia wanted to steal for her own father) were relieved to have English around them for a change. I’d kind of forgotten how overwhelming the language thing is in the beginning. Now I barely even notice. It’s all just voices to me. Being in an English speaking place is actually more distracting, because I’m not used to hearing other people’s conversations.

After O’Brian’s, we went to a Korean nightclub, which was quite a crazy experience. I can’t even possibly fully explain to you guys how crazy that place was. My mom ended up getting felt up by a 20-something! Hahaha… Plus, there were dancers doing strange sex acrobatics on stage. I’m not even kidding. The man was wearing a nude coloured G-string, and the woman was in a match G-string and bikini. It was bizarre. The stage itself was a spectacle of lights and movement, and the backdrop looked like nothing I can explain. Don’t worry, I took a video, so I don’t have to explain it.

Finally, Matt and Jules took off, and the rest of the party split up. Julie, another bridesmaid and I went back to O’Brian’s because we weren’t through partying yet. All in all, it was a great day and night, that wasn’t long enough. A wonderful time was had by all… What a way to begin a life together! Congratulations guys!

Much love

Ash

Ps. The fun has just begun, stay tuned for my next entry, as we follow my parents and I on a crazy Korean tour of Japan!