Wrap · Weddings & rites
Wedding food-offering wrap
Red-and-blue wrapping for the jujube, chestnut and meat platters the bride brings to her first bow to her in-laws.
- For
- Pyebaek: bride's first bow to the in-laws; jujubes, chestnuts, dried meat or chicken from her family
- Wraps
- Platters of 대추/밤 and 육포 or 닭
- Cloth
- laid as a diamond, about 100 cm
- Closed with
- Geunbong seal band
- Level
- Moderate
Custom sets the colours by contents: dried meat is wrapped with blue outward, the stacked chestnuts and jujubes with red outward, and green tassels hang at the four corners. Unwrapped, the outer cloth becomes the cover for the 폐백 table.
Outer cloth about 1 m square, double, red one side and blue the other
- 1Wrap the dried-meat (or chicken) platter in an inner cloth so the blue side shows.
- 2Wrap the jujube and chestnut platter in an inner cloth so the red side shows.
- 3Use two inner cloths if only the parents-in-law are living, four if the grandparents are too.
- 4Wrap the set in the outer red/blue double cloth.
- 5Seal with 근봉; the father-in-law unties it at the ceremony.
History & tradition
Joseon wedding rite (구고례); food wrapping as practised today
Pyebaek is the bride's first formal bow to her husband's parents and elders, offering jujubes, chestnuts, wine and food made at her own home; it was once held on the third day after the wedding. After the bows the in-laws toss jujubes into her skirt, wishing her wealth, honour and many sons. Caterers wrap the dried meat or chicken blue side out and the jujube-and-chestnut stack red side out, with green tassels, and the outer cloth becomes the table cover.
Most couples now hold pyebaek at the wedding hall on the day, with platters from specialist caterers.
The wrapping colours come from a modern caterer; the encyclopedia does not describe the wrapping.
Researched with medium confidence.