His Name is Kim Bum

I got the invitation ages ago; the wedding and the reception were on the glass boat cruise. No problem, or so I thought. I went solo, also no problem. I was supposed to go with Il Woo but as we all know, that imploded six months ago. I was running 10 minutes late so I blasted on the ship w/ only a few minutes to spare. I didn’t see any familiar faces. Hmmmm. Dara had been living in the Philippines for a few years, so maybe these were all of her friends? I boldly approached a cute guest and introduced myself. He said his name was Kim Bum, and he innocently asked, “So how long do you know Kara and _________?” Alarm bells went off inside my head. WRONG WEDDING! Eottoeke? What should I do? If I walk out of here Kim Bum might figure out. And if I stay here, I’ll end up crashing the wedding. And the couple might be confused. But Uggghhh!!!! After assessing my options, I ended up….

CRASHING THE WEDDING!!!!

I turned white. I plopped into the nearest chair and tried to wrap my mind around what was happening. I called Dara, NO ANSWER! I called ten other people and finally figured out that Dara’s wedding was July 6 not June 7. (7/6) not (6/7).

Kim Bum was hovering nearby, so finally I explained the mix-up and he (true gentleman) burst out laughing. Strangely, he was dateless, and he asked me to stay. I said no. Then we felt the boat moving. Despite laughing at my mistake, he was a great date. We ate, danced, and sort of bluffed our way through the “Who is she?” questioning. Definitely the oddest and maybe the best wedding I’ve ever crashed.

THE DREADED FIRST DATE

I just hung up w/ Kim Bum. We talked for an hour-kind of a shocker. It’s definitely been a while since I felt so released, so early. Don’t get ahead of yourself So Eun, I know! We have officially scheduled our first date.

Kim Bum and I had both heard great thing about ‘BLA’, this new restaurant from SK’s “it” chef. It’s tiny (of course) and they don’t take reservations; I met him there, and it was a 45 minute wait. This was not ideal for me, since I had worked out before the date, and was already ravenous. But we chit-chatted, and finally, we were in! We ordered from the huge metal menu – pasta for me, mushroom something for him. The plates arrived, and…. No kidding! There were four strands of pasta on my plate, and one big mushroom on his, I was light-headed at this point. I understand the whole “presentation” thing, but one bite of the food wasn’t gonna do it for me. I decided to….

SPEAK MY MIND!!!!

I turned to Kim Bum and said, “I know we don’t know each other very well, and I do think this food looks very beautiful, BUT I worked out today! I’m dying over here!” Kim Bum grabbed my hand and leaned closer. “Thank goodness you said that, because I was sitting here wondering how many more of these I could order before you thought I was a complete idiot.” Hallelujah! I cracked up. We were on the same side! I asked, “So now what?” Then…..

WE HATCHED A PLAN!!!!

Kim Bum suggested, “Let’s finish up w/ what will now be known as our delicious ‘appetizers’ and I’ll call Il Mulino to see if we can get a table.” He stepped outside to make the call while I motioned to the waiter for our bill. He was personally offended that we were leaving so soon, but at that point, I was ready to knock him down and vault over his body if it meant I could get to Il Mulino a few seconds faster.

Kim Bum gave me the thumbs-up from outside and in less than 30 minutes, we were sitting at a small candlelit table w/ two glasses of wine, fresh bread, and olive oil, and an antipasti plate. “I am so happy I could cry”, I said and Kim Bum laughed. “Me too”, he replied, “but first, we eat”.

ENGAGED                                                                     

I can’t believe I am writing this, but Kim Bum and I are engaged. Engaged to be, yes, married. It feels I’ve been laughing and crying and calling people for days. I am so happy it’s just silly, is what it is. I want to get details down on paper while it’s still fresh on my mind, along with a memento, of course….

Kim Bum and I love to eat. Thank goodness we also like to run! So there is no surprise that even the engagement revolved around food. The lead-up to the proposal was….

THE RAVIOLI INCIDENT!!!!

For some reason I was determined to make homemade pasta, don’t ask me why. I set aside an entire Saturday afternoon to make the dough and the filling, thinking that Kim Bum and I would have this amazing meal on Saturday night. Very optimistic. In reality, dinner and the proposal were postponed due to a….

LOST ENGAGEMENT RING!!!!

Apparently, my recipe was for 12 people, not two, so there was a bit of extra dough. Kim Bum offered to help, so we set to it, cutting and folding a hundred little squares. He was a bit secretive w/ this but I didn’t think much of it. When he ran out for a bottle of wine, I consolidated all of our ravioli on cookie sheets. Kim Bum came back and his face went white.

“Where’s my ravioli?” he demanded. He was wild-eyed, and started poking every ravioli w/in arms reach!

I was confused why he’ acting like that. He may have seen my confused that made him confessed that he had planned to propose, and he’d had the brilliant idea to hide the ring in ravioli.

I didn’t miss a beat. I told him “YES, I would marry you, and we were going to find my engagement ring if it meant ruining every one of the ravioli we’d just created.” After the long search it turned out that it was on the 73^rd ravioli.

6 months later after that silly-sweet incident I walked down the aisle with a sweet smile on my face. I couldn’t believe that I’m going to marry. Well, the fact that I still have the same surname “KIM”.  I felt like I was walking in the air, not thinking that another silly incident might happened. We were at the altar, when we were about to exchange vows and ring…

THE RING!!!!

Everybody panicked, everybody was looking for it. The ring bearer (a kid) lost it. So it had a delay for about 15 minutes. We were worried about it, for the wedding and—

Luckily, my Mom and Dad gave their wedding rings. I was shocked.

“But, Mom this was yours?” I told her.

“No child, it’s now yours. I don’t want you to get married w/out a ring.” Mom said.

“And besides, your Mom and I had long years of harmonious relationship, and maybe our lucky charm (the ring) might work on you too.” Dad added.

“Thanks Dad.”

After the drama, we were finally married. It’s funny that our love story started at a  bizarre situation and ends up at another bizarre event, from the wedding crash, up to the missing ring, and what’s more weird is that I’m still wearing the surname “KIM” but Nah! Ah! Ah! It’s not plain Kim So Eun but Mrs. Kim So Eun.  Have fun on crashing weddings! ~__^V