"It only happens once in a lifetime." "What's good is good." "All that remains are the photos." As couples prepare for their wedding, unexpected costs pile up. Each time, they agonize over whether to spend or not, but ultimately surrender to reality.
The book begins with a question: while a wedding is one of life's most important events, is it truly rational to pay tens of millions to hundreds of millions of won for a single day? Through this lens, the author exposes the bare face of "K-weddings," examining the structural problems of the wedding industry, Korea's patriarchal system and the culture of caring about others' perceptions.
The author notes that Korea's deep-rooted social problems are condensed within the big event of a wedding. Regional imbalances caused by the concentration of population and resources in the Seoul metropolitan area, environmental problems driven by excessive production and consumption, and deepening polarization — weddings reveal all these contradictions, the author argues.
The book also captures how weddings serve as a moment to internalize the social order once more, and represent the ultimate expression of a consumer-competition era. As couples follow the path others have taken, they become conditioned by the endlessly reproduced fantasy of a "perfect wedding" and at some point accept it as a natural course of action. "In Korean society, weddings have become 'a perfect example of capital and taste being converted into signs and put on display,'" the author writes, pointing out that the original function and role of weddings as ceremonies have faded. In reality, every element — the size and location of the venue, the type of meal, the tuxedo and wedding dress — becomes subject to evaluation. Guests read the "taste" that the couple reveals through the wedding event as indicators of the bride and groom's standing and their parents' social status and financial power. Moreover, as these results circulate through social media, not only acquaintances but complete strangers become evaluators, fueling competitive psychology. The author also points out that a culture of constant comparison with others prevents couples from simply enjoying their once-in-a-lifetime wedding. That said, the author does not deny the inherent meaning of the wedding ceremony itself. Rather, the book proposes that recognizing the importance of creating a wedding that is "true to oneself" matters more, and that couples should set their own principles and standards instead of comparing themselves with others. 20,000 won.