Seniors Tie the Knot—Not!

Two Cabot House seniors were unofficially married in a mock traditional Korean wedding ceremony in Cabot last night, in an event hosted by the Global Cultural Club, a group of Korean-Americans dedicated to spreading and sharing Korean culture.

Cabot Resident Tutor Ha Yan Lee invited representatives of the Los Angeles-based group to Cambridge to participate in the ceremony, in which Snezhana B. Zlatinova ’07 and Ludwig “Matt” Otto ’07—who began dating after meeting during freshman orientation—were fake-married.

“We really wanted to demonstrate some of the great things about Korean culture in small, warm ceremony,” Yan said. “Especially in the wake of the V-Tech incident, we thought it was important to remind people that there is more to our culture.”

“Ha Yan is our favorite tutor,” Zlatinova said. “She just asked us one day in the dining hall a few months ago if we would do this, and we were happy to.”

But she added that the ceremony might not have been completely unofficial.

“They told us this was legally binding in Korea,” Zlatinova said. “I don’t think Matt is too happy about that.”

The marriage ceremony featured full traditional dress and procedure, a process that is not often seen even in modern-day Korea, according to Global Cultural Club President Mary Lee.

“Usually, there’s a Westernized ceremony without any traditional portions,” Lee said through a translator. “To perform it properly requires special knowledge and training, so it’s very rare.”

The abbreviated demonstration last night not only incorporated many of these elements, but also showcased a Korean drum dance and a Korean paper handcraft session.

Approximately 40 people were in the audience for the mock wedding, including members of the Boston Korean Club and the Boston Senior Korean Club, two local organizations that hosted the Los Angeles group.

“As an East Asian studies concentrator, you get a lot of attention for Japan and China, but Korea generally gets the shaft,” said graduate student Beverley N. Foulks, who is in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.

Others had more pragmatic reasons for showing up.

“Raffle,” confessed Henry J. Foo ’08, holding up his ticket for an iPod raffle. After the hour-long wedding ceremony and tea ceremony were recreated, and their respective cultural aspects explained through translation by Lee, an iPod shuffle was randomly awarded to an audience member.

The ceremony ended in accordance with Korean tradition, with the groom giving the bride a piggyback as they pretended to enter into their new life together.

“The big thing to remember was when to bow,” said Otto. “That was really all we had to learn on our own.”

—Staff writer Siodhbhra M. Parkin can be reached at sparkin@fas.harvard.edu.