Choosing the Venue: Korea (Part 3)

Our final venue of choice is Ritz Carlton 🙂

We pondered between Ritz and Shilla for a week or so, because we couldn’t let go of the thought of being wed @ Shilla’s beautiful traditional 영빈관 (Youngbingwan: Korean castle). But I really didn’t like that the main ceremony hall, separate from the reception area, was so small in size and would not have the heightened walkway + high ceiling that I looked for in hotel weddings. So Ritz Carlton it was, and here are the reasons why it made #1 on our list:

1. Main ballroom is not as big as Hyatt or Shilla’s Dynasty Ballroom, and fits maximum 350 people. FIY: if you have high number of guests, which is pretty common in Korea, the rest of the guests would sit OUTSIDE the ballroom as a “opera” type wedding where they get projections of your wedding.  I thought this was pretty rude for the guests because the area seems a bit secluded, so I’m curious as to why anyone holds it here when they have bigger guest count. It looks something like this:

Choosing the Venue: Korea (Part 1)

From our wedding website:

David and I spent several days after our visit to Singapore to look for THE perfect venue for us. Because I’ve always dreamt of a classy wedding venue that boasted the long, heighened aisle, I knew it would be a hotel wedding. We had a lot of fun looking at Hyatt, Ritz Carlton, Shilla, J.W. Marriott, and Raum (planned by David!), but the funnest part for me was watching the Korean representatives get creative in their marketing strategies. One manager snaped his fingers and the door to the main ball flung open with loud wedding music and dramatic lighting. We narrowed it down to Shilla and Ritz Carlton, because we loved Shilla’s traditional Korean-style wedding hall “영빈관” and Ritz Carlton’s beautiful and classy interior decor.  We ultimately went with Ritz, because Ritz had the heightened aisle (and high ceilings!) and 영빈관 didn’t. I wanted to capture a sense of elegance and class at our wedding that would be remembered for years to come, and the Ritz-Carlton empire proved just that. We plan to return on our anniversaries and stay at the Ritz Suite as we would on our wedding night^^”

In Korea, I found out there are four main types of wedding venues.

1. Hotel weddings

2. 하우스웨딩 (“House wedding”),

3. Wedding convention halls

4. and Churches.