Whose story : Ashka

Wedding Kiss

Based on what I have observed till now, I think the following is a normal process for a couple get married in America.

1. Start to see each other.

2. Fall in love and spare a lot of time together.

3. Live together (This step could take a few years.)

4. If a couple is still together after a few years of living, then, at some point, a guy pops the question. (Or maybe a lady is the one who pops the question.)

5. Once they are engaged, they start to plan on wedding but it could also take around a year till they really have a wedding ceremony.

Again, this would not be typical case but I have seen bunch of couples going through these steps. Especially, it is very typical to take around a year from proposal to wedding. My friend, Ashka who just got engaged a few weeks ago, decided to have her wedding this coming Labor day (Sep 6th 2010) weekend. It is a quite short period from engagement to wedding. So, whenever she tells her friends that she is going to marry this Labor day weekend, they ask her, “What? That early! Don’t say this is a shotgun wedding! Is it?” Here is a very interesting expression, shotgun wedding! I personally think this is very American one because it indicates the use of a gun. You all know that people can buy guns in America. For your better understanding, here is a good definition I got from Ashka.

A shotgun wedding takes place when the girl gets pregnant while dating a boy and the boy is not too sure about marrying her. So, the father of the girl steps in and uses a shotgun to scare the boy and talk him into marrying his daughter. Basically saying you got her pregnant so you better marry her or I am going to shoot you!

Well, this is not happening now. But I do believe this used to happen in the past and it became an expression.

For the similar case, we, Korean, have a very different expression. 속도위반(Sok-Do-Wui-Ban) Its literal translation is “speed limit violation.” It originates from traffic law. If you violate speed limit, there is a higher chance that you can get into an accident. By accident, I mean a guy knocks a girl up. That is a big accident because there are not that many days a woman can get pregnant in a year. So, Korean people would say, “Is this marriage a Sok-Do-Wui-Ban or what?”, if a couple tries to marry all of a sudden. What a different expression for a similar situation! Isn’t it?

Ashka, many conguratulations on your wedding! Wish the best of luck in your life ahead! By the way, are you sure it is not a shotgun wedding or Sok-Do-Wui-Ban? 🙂