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Wedding guests-for-hire cash in as Korean families put image over reality

Published: 01 Oct. 2025, 07:00

LEE SOO-JUNG
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A couple weds at a wedding hall in downtown Seoul in August 2020. [NEWS1]

Lee Da-jeong, 38, has a “compelling” side hustle — pretending to be the friend of a bride she's never met before at a wedding.

She doesn’t do much heartfelt celebrating, but her role as a paid wedding guest earns her some extra cash on weekends, requires minimal labor and even gets her a free buffet-style meal. She's now a pro at playing the part, having done this part-time job at multiple weddings for a decade since her mid-20s, a testament to the continuing demand for the lucrative service in Korea's marriage market.

In Korea, weddings typically have hundreds of guests, including relatives, friends, colleagues, mere acquaintances and even friends of the newlyweds' parents. The number of guests is often seen as a factor projecting the couple’s social standing as well as their parents'. The parents are considered main characters in a wedding ceremony, a once-in-a-lifetime event to show society how successfully they raised their child, with a notable custom: the mothers of the bride and groom light candles near the wedding arch and initiate the ceremony.

While the role-playing service fulfills newlyweds’ desire to fill out the wedding venue, it simultaneously provides hired guests an opportunity to make easy cash. The role players are paid according to the number of weddings they attend — mostly, they attend one wedding on a weekend day.

Lee recalled last week that brides had often requested she behave in a friendly manner, starting from their bridal suites.

“Although it was a bit awkward at first, brides at every wedding responded naturally when the role players approached them casually as if they had known us for a long time,” Lee said. “There were fun elements, just like doing improv."

Paid stand-ins and sociology experts spoke with the Korea JoongAng Daily on how this role-playing service in weddings works, and why it's thriving.

A day in the life of a fake wedding guest

A signboard welcomes wedding guests at a wedding venue in Seoul in July 2024. [NEWS1]

Lee's day of role-playing begins with a roll call.

Lee can't crash weddings just because she was hired. On her way to the wedding venue, she stops by buildings or subway stations near the venue, where other role players agreed to meet to confirm their attendance. Role players are not allowed to enter the venue as a large group. They usually split into small groups of two to three people, much like a pod of friends. As did Lee this time around.

Kim, a woman in her 20s who once acted out the part of a bride’s friend at a wedding in Daegu, said she had to check in with an on-site coordinator overseeing the role players.

The next step is to identify herself — that she was indeed there as a role player. Additional acting skills are a plus.

Bridal suite where brides greet guests before the wedding ceremony [CA WEDDING CONVENTION]

At the weddings they attended, Kim and Lee visited the bridal suites to take selfies and photos before the brides walked down the aisle. They also chatted with the brides as if they had been close friends for years.

Next, the role players can sit and watch the ceremony and join the final group photo with all the guests. Typical wedding ceremonies last less than two hours.

Role players can then dine at the venue, on average worth at least 50,000 won ($35) nowadays, with a free meal voucher. However, they can also go home freely once the ceremony ends.

To get paid, photos taken with the brides or grooms should be submitted to coordinators or recruitment agencies that connect newlyweds and role players. If their full participation is substantiated, they receive their compensation.

“After the wedding ended, I met with the coordinator and received the day's wage in cash,” Kim said. “It is generally between 15,000 won and 30,000 won.”

Lee noted that role-playing at rural weddings is slightly more lucrative.

“Role players attending weddings in the countryside can earn an additional 5,000 won to 10,000 won,” Lee said. “There are always chartered bus services from the greater Seoul area, offering free-of-charge transportation.”

A hired wedding guest's playbook

A chatroom for recruiting role players who can act as wedding guests. A total of 1,398 people are in the chat.[KIM]

Not every aspiring stand-in gets a chance to become a paid fake wedding guest.  Brokering agencies recruit role players based on specific requests from their clients, such as sex and age.

Jung Hyung-ki, head of Gaja Wedding, an agency specializing in wedding role-play services, told the paper on Sept. 23 that most clients request five people. In rare cases, clients ask for more than 20 guests.

When role-playing positions are posted in a group chat room, those who wish to participate send their names, ages and selfies to the agencies.

“The agency mostly looked for people in their 20s and 30s — the prime age for marriage,” Kim said.

Lee also said she used to act as the bride’s friend, as a guest belonging to that age group. Yet, she saw a case where a bride was finding role players who could act as relatives in their 40s and 50s.

Role players must keep their lips sealed.

Role players are instructed to be discreet when speaking in the neighborhood where the wedding is held. It is a precaution to prevent real guests from realizing the presence of hired fake guests.

Lee, who also runs a YouTube channel “Freetea Mukbang” with over 200,000 subscribers, eventually quit doing wedding role-play gigs about two years ago, mainly out of concern that newlyweds or guests might recognize her.

“Although no one had ever recognized me, I stopped doing it so as not to cause trouble at someone else’s wedding,” Lee said.

Social image over real bonds

An image from the TV drama series ″Reborn Rich″ (2022) shows how family members take a photograph with the newlywed couple after the wedding ceremony. [JOONGANG ILBO]

Weddings in Korea have become a stage where the breadth and depth of newlyweds' social relationships are inevitably revealed and quietly judged, experts said.

Seo Kyeong-won, a sociologist from Jeonbuk National University, said that weddings in Korea have become a platform where “newlyweds present their social standing — an indicator of one’s personality and family prestige.”

“The social atmosphere triggers the couples to display so-called ideal interpersonal relationships that meet social expectations,” Seo said. “Because weddings can expose weakness in their human relationships, they rely on role-playing services.”

Prof. Jung Heon-mok of the Academy of Korean Studies noted a uniqueness in Korean weddings — their brevity.

“Weddings in foreign countries usually last an entire day with very close and intimate friends on the guest list,” Jung said. “But, in Korea, all wedding components are often squeezed into a two-hour ceremony, making couples show everything within the given time.”

Jung attributed the wedding role-playing service to one specific element: a group photo taken at the end of the wedding ceremony.

A hall in a hotel in Korea is decorated for a wedding ceremony in an undated photo. [JOONGANG ILBO]

He explained that the Korean wedding industry has failed to reflect changing dynamics among contemporary people. He noted that people these days tend to have narrower human relationships than in the past, when broader human relationships were more commonly pursued.

“However, the wedding venues, their requirements for the minimum number of guests and their grand interiors largely remain the same,” Jung said.

“It appears that couples use actors as they are worried that their photo may seem empty,” Jung said. “In essence, it is a service for substituting one’s human relationships.”

BY LEE SOO-JUNG [[email protected]]