hankyoreh

“I hope that our wedding ceremony will be a little flower of peace that blossoms over the pain of division.”

At 1 pm on Apr. 4, Lee Yo-sep, 31, and Choi Ji-hyeon, 36, will be having an unusual wedding ceremony that represents a prayer for reunification of the Korean peninsula. Their ceremony will take place at the former Workers’ Party building, still scarred by the Korean War, in Cheolwon County, Gangwon Province.

Not only the location of the wedding but also its program are attracting attention. The ceremony will begin with the bride and groom - wearing the uniforms of the (North) Korea People’s Army and the ROK Army, respectively - braving a hail of bullets with a local theater troupe called Descendents of Taebong as they reenact scenes from the Korean War. The story of falling in love and getting married amid the blood and sweat of the battlefield will unfold like a play.

Toward the end of the ceremony, the actors, the bride and groom, and the guests will all join in to sing the celebratory song “Our Dream Is Unification.” Group pictures will be taken in front of the Workers’ Party building, and an exhibition of wedding photos taken around Cheolwon will also be displayed near the site of the wedding.

The idea of having the wedding at the Workers’ Party building was suggested by Choi, the bride, who is an actor in Descendents of Taebong.

“We wanted to have a wedding ceremony at our home here in Cheolwon, a divided area, to express our desire for unification and for world peace. I hope that these few words will ease the way for unification,” Choi said.

The couple received permission from the Cheolwon County Office, which is responsible for maintaining the Workers’ Party building. With the addition of the acting troupe, the wedding ceremony became a work of theater.

The happy couple first met while volunteering in Oct. 2012 and settled down in Cheolwon. Lee, an artist, painted murals at schools, army bases, and other locations, with Choi, an activist working with a “talent donation” organization.

While the two were livening up the gray walls of Cheolwon with colorful murals, their relationship turned romantic in March of last year.

The reception after the wedding also has Cheolwon as its theme. All of the dishes at the reception will be made with local products: the rice is grown in Cheolwon, the kimchi is made with Cheolwon cabbages and red pepper powder, and the galbitang (rib stew) is cooked with Cheolwon beef.

“I think that marriage takes sacrifice, and my fiancee thinks it takes a loving heart. Just as marriage takes place when sacrifice and a loving heart come together, I think that these two things are all we need for unification to occur,” Lee said.

By Park Soo-hyeok, Gangwon correspondent

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