MY TWO-TONE DRESS

I've shared in great length about my extensive dress search (it came in 4.5 parts!), the hunt for the perfect bridesmaid dresses and some ideas for our little flower girls. You've even taken a test to help us dress our guys. In honor of Mother's Day, let's move on and talk about the moms, shall we?

For both Latte moms, the dress choice was an easy one. They will both be wearing hanboks, traditional Korean dresses.

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Besides the fact that they're beautiful with bold colors and gorgeous fabrics, they also pay tribute to the heritage of both Latte families. Both moms will be getting new hanboks for the wedding, which will be custom-made with her choice of colors, embellishments and accessories. Each of these was carefully chosen, as there is much history, meaning and symbolism behind a color choice or addition of an accessory. Traditionally, the mother of the bride wears a pink (or similar color) hanbok while the mother of the groom wears one in blue. So both Mama Latte and FMIL Latte went to her local hanbok store to order her dress...and both should be coming in shortly. If only every dress search was this easy!!!

The bride and groom are traditionally gifted hanboks as well. Like Mrs. Martini, I was hesitant to follow this tradition. I didn't really foresee us wearing them again in the near future, which definitely didn't warrant the (lots of hundreds of dollars) price tag. But when Mama Latte went to go and order hers, the lady in the store talked her into getting them for us. The bait? A big sale. Sigh, I must have inherited my weakness for sales from her.

So when Mr. Latte was in town, Mama Latte took us to a Korean hanbok store in northern NJ. We walked into the store and saw walls stuffed with colorful Korean blankets and pillows. So very typical of a Korean store.

There were also cases full of beautiful colored fabrics to choose from. How does one choose from all these pretty colors???

I quickly decided on a traditional red for the skirt. After going back and forth between green and yellow for the top, we finally decided on the yellow.

For the sleeves, I had a choice between adding floral or geometric details to solid colored sleeves, or going with some multi-colored stripes. After going back and forth (again!), I decided to go with the stripes. My hanbok will look like the one below. Yes, after half an hour of going back and forth, I ultimately ended up copy-catting this model's dress.

Mr. Latte's choices were much more limited and he (very quickly) decided on a navy blue top, an ivory undershirt and red pants.


And we all know that shoes complete an outfit. To wear with the hanbok, I'll be getting a new pair of shoes (awww yeah!). They'll look like this lovely pair, but the colors will coordinate with my hanbok's colors. Mama Latte used her mad negotiating skillz to get the lady to throw this hawt pair of shoes in for free. I was so proud.

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While we were there, we also booked their services for a Paebaek ceremony, a traditional Korean wedding ceremony. While tradition calls for this ceremony to be performed in private for only the groom's family, both Latte families didn't really feel the need to incorporate this into the wedding. But we gave it some thought, and like Mrs. Bee, realized that the ceremony would be new and interesting for many of our non-Korean guests. So we decided to go ahead with the Paebaek. The service includes all the traditional food, setup of the space, helpers to walk us through the ceremony and two emcees. It also includes rental of the traditional wedding clothes, beautiful silks in bold colors to wear over our new hanboks.

Our hanboks should be in any day now and I'm getting more and more excited to try it on! And I'm very happy that we've decided to throw in a bit of our heritage and culture into our very "western" wedding celebration.

Will you be incorporating any aspects of your heritage into your wedding? What are some of the special traditions of your culture?