Wait longer for more expensive e-ring?

[JenStone]

IndieJones - I'd like to take at least a year to plan my wedding, since I'm artsy fartsy and could love to add a lot of homemade touches. My boyfriend and I talked about March 2008 as a possible date, so a late 2006/early 2007 engagement would be perfect.

froufrou - thank you! It's always nice when someone is interested in your culture. I'm Korean and my boyfriend is Chinese.....both our cultures have A LOT of traditions related to engagements/weddings. While neither of us expect the other to perform all the traditions, we would like to do so in order to learn more about each others' cultures while kissing up to the in-laws a bit.

The tradition of exchanging gifts is called hahm. I googled it and one of the first pages to come up was from theknot.com. Here's the link: http://www.theknot.com/ch_article.html?Object=A00127172009&keyword=CUSTOMS+%26+ETHNIC+...

The modern hahm is a lot more subdued than described in the article above - the groom's family and bride's family getting together for an afternoon to exchange gifts, for example. The exchange of gifts can occur at the hahm or the engagement party, or both. Most gifts exchanged include clothing and jewelry, and they can get pretty expensive! I've heard of families exchanging Rolexes, even cars!

I don't think our gifts will get that extravagent, but since both of us have fairly large families, we need to start saving now.

As for Chinese traditions....I'm not too sure of them. But I'm sure I'll be learning a lot more about them as we get closer to engagement!

 

[JenStone]

Oh! One thing I wanted to add...through western movies and books, more couples in Korea are starting to get engaged in the western tradition (guy buys ring, engagement through surprise proposal). However, most couples just decide to get married. There is no formal proposal. They don''t get rings until the engagement party.

I''ve heard numerous stories of girls who meet guys from Korea who never get their dream proposal. There''s a girl I know who went to dinner one night with her family, her boyfriend and his family. Suddenly he brought out a ring and put it on her finger. Later that night, she asked him, "Wait....are we engaged?" And he said yes! He had just assumed that since they had been talking about marriage, that they would get married. He didn''t see the need for a formal proposal since that''s not the way that he had been brought up.

....the girl handed back the ring and said, "You have ONE MONTH to give me a better proposal. And I better be crying when it actually happens!"

He did propose, 3 weeks later, and she did cry.

 

[froufrou]

So everyone gets presents! sounds fun