While on the surface North Korea still sometimes seems a living fossil of a bygone era, this is a deeply misleading impression. A lot of things have changed in the DPRK recently, and wedding culture is no exception.

In North Korea it is still universally believed that marriage is an inevitable and indispensable stage of every person’s life. This very traditional view is bound to change eventually, but it remains true that that nearly all North Koreans are certain: everybody should marry at the proper age.

Under Kim Il Sung, modest celebrations were considered ideal. In recent years, however, as