Couples Spend W133 Mil. for Wedding > 영어토론방

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Seo Myung-kyun, a 29-year-old office worker in Pusan, is agonizing nowadays with his wedding a month away.

He knew that preparing for a wedding is not easy, but it is much more difficult than he thought. ``There are too many things I have to take care of. In particular, preparing a house for my fiancee and me is the most difficult task when it comes to wedding,’’ Seo told The Korea Times. ``The cost for a house accounts for more than 90 percent of the total wedding cost to bridegroom. ``I joked to my unmarried friends that I want to marry but I don’t want to have a wedding ceremony because of the stress to prepare for it,’’ he said.

According to a survey published on Thursday, newly-married couples in South Korea spend about 133 million won ($130,000) on average for their weddings.
The survey of 305 newly-wed couples by the Ministry of Health and Welfare and Korea Marriage Culture Institute in Seoul, showed that they spent an average of 133 million won on their wedding and more than 94 percent said they did not have an engagement ceremony, showing a changing trend in the wedding culture.
The poll also revealed that the grooms spent about 96 million won on average, almost three times as much as the 33 million won spent by their brides. The largest chunk from the grooms’ expenditure, some 79 million won, went into preparing a place of residence for the new couple.

About 10 million won went into the cost for renting a wedding hall. Other wedding expenses, including those for the reception and the honeymoon, cost an average of 33.5 million won.
Being unable to handle financial matters on their own, the couples surveyed said that they receive about 72 million won or 55.8 percent of the total wedding cost from their family members, in particular from their parents, the survey showed.

When asked what the most difficult part of the wedding preparation was, about 58 percent of the respondents cited finding a home while 13 percent of the couples said they had trouble agreeing on the price of wedding gifts to be given by the bride to the groom’s relatives.
``Honsu,’’ or gifts given by the bride to her future in-laws are often criticized for inflating wedding costs as they often come to tens of millions of won.
Around 86 percent of the couples said they planned to have two children or less while only 6.4 percent said they wanted to have more than three, highlighting one of the reasons for the country’s fast dwindling birthrate. About 7 percent of the couples said they don’t want have a baby.

It is spring, the time for nuptials, and homes and offices will be receiving an increased number of wedding invitation cards. For decades, Koreans have tried political and social reforms and achieved many but the wedding custom proves to be the hardest one to change. To tell the truth, it is getting worse.
The worst part of it is the exchange of "yedan" and "yemul" between the two families, whose costs have grown fast year after year. Figures released by the Korea Wedding Culture Research Institute show that the prices for yedan items to be given to the man`s family members have increased to some 13 million won on average, while yemul, the jewelry gift to the bride, now costs a little over 10 million won. Both are nearly twice as much as four to five years ago. In many cases cash gifts are also exchanged between the two families, the bridegroom`s giving a little more than it receives from the bride`s.

The Law on Family Rituals, which provided many restrictions on wedding ceremonies, was abolished in 1999 after being virtually ignored by society since its enactment in the 1970s, and vanity creeps to every aspect of a wedding from the printing of invitation cards to "receptions" afterwards. The size of wedding ceremonies is getting bigger and deluxe hotels are chosen as the venue by an increasing number of new couples.

Over 70 percent of new couples regret the way they arranged their wedding. Then why were they not able to challenge the custom beforehand? It`s the pressure from families and peers. And there is the desire to recover what was given to others at their weddings.
The high cost of weddings is also cited as a major cause for young people`s declining interest in marriage. Everybody knows the problem and even the answer. What should be done is change our attitude and philosophy and take the bold step toward simpler weddings - and forget about past "investments." And, our reformist leaders in the government need to be advised that correcting the wrong wedding custom is as urgent a social task as fighting bureaucratic corruption and establishing the truth about past anti-national activities.

**For your tips**
marriage:결혼, wedding:결혼식
an average of 액수: 평균 얼마만큼의 돈

Question
1. Tell us about your 'dream wedding'.
2. Have you ever seriously considered what your wedding would be like?,
    and how much it will cost you?
3. Do you think Korean couples spend too much money on their weddings?
    If so, what is the biggest problem?
4. How can we make economical and desirable wedding culture in Korea?

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