Wednesday, October 14, 2009

Marriage Guaranteed


There's only one catch. You don't get to decide who. Someone else will decide that for you. And you might not even meet the person till the day of. Oh, you may have to join an (alleged) cult. You may also have to move south of Seoul, change religions, and follow the messiah. Other than that, at least your mother will stop making that face. And with karma as your constant companion, how bad could it be?

Mass wedding ceremony, Unification Church, Sun Moon University in Asan, south of Seoul, 10/14/09. About 5,000 couples from 120 countries around the world exchanged wedding vows today, the church said (Reuters/Lee Jae-Won).

Rev. Moon marries 45,000 in global mass wedding
Hyung-jin Kim (AP)
ASAN, South Korea – It was his wedding day, but Choi In-seok admitted to a twinge of nervousness Wednesday about spending the rest of his life with the woman hand-picked for him by the Unification Church. The 34-year-old English teacher was among 45,000 people worldwide who took part in a mass wedding that was the largest in a decade — and quite possibly the last for the church's controversial founder, the Rev. Sun Myung Moon.
Moon, who turns 90 in January, has turned day-to-day leadership of the Unification Church over to three sons and a daughter. But the self-proclaimed "Messiah" returned to the altar Wednesday to bless tens of thousands of newlyweds in a special ceremony that also honored his 50th wedding anniversary. More>>