EJAE changed six times across her wedding weekend, and the look people kept returning to was not a wedding dress at all. 'Everything else looks very pretty and coordinated,' one commenter wrote, 'but that first outfit is a showstopper.'
The singer married Sam Kim in Seoul on 17 October, and the photographs were published on Tuesday 20 October. When a fashion forum on Reddit reposted the set, the thread parked itself on the opening image and stayed.
EJAE, 34, is the singing voice of Rumi in KPop Demon Hunters and co-wrote 'Golden', which won Best Original Song at the 2026 Academy Awards. She and Kim met at a songwriting session in 2017.
A Ceremony Before the Ceremony
The weekend opened with a paebaek and a welcome party. A paebaek is the part of a Korean wedding where the couple pay their respects to family and receive blessings in return, and it is not a given at a modern wedding.
'Not everyone does Paebaek, but we wanted to have that traditional element as part of our wedding,' EJAE told Vogue.
The hanboks were made by the Seoul house Han Eun Hee. The first is a green and gold jacket embroidered to the cuffs over a deep red skirt weighted with gold, with ornaments set into her hair. For the ceremonial portraits the couple changed again, EJAE into a red robe with sleeves banded in blue, yellow and white, Kim into black with a rank badge at the chest.
Readers went through it in detail. One admired 'the traditional red-green combo' and recognised the red robe as a hwal-ot, saying hers had been modelled on a princess's wedding outfit. Another was more straightforward: 'The wedding gown is just pure beautiful but it pales in front of the colorful Korean hanbok. She looks like a historical queen.'
Then Came the Gowns
EJAE walked down the aisle in a custom Danielle Frankel gown, strapless tulle with asymmetric draping and a bubbled hem over a nude chiffon layer. 'I had long admired Danielle's modern, but slightly twisted take on a classic wedding dress,' she said. The brief she gave was 'ethereal, modern, chic, and timeless with a twist'. She kept her jewellery plain apart from heirloom pieces passed from her grandmother to her mother.
It won over hard cases. One reader, never impressed by the label before, conceded that 'the hem here is masterfully done'.
Kim wore a double-breasted tuxedo in Loro Piana cloth by Bhambi's Custom Tailors of New York, and a white Zac Posen tuxedo later. EJAE's reception gown was Zac Posen too, body-skimming chiffon with beading and a small capelet, and a fringed Milla Nova mini took her through the after party.
Where Praise Faltered
Two objections surfaced. One commenter said she was glad EJAE had gone traditional rather than choosing 'the pastel, puffy things that all the tourists wear and the magazine editorials dress'. The original poster then produced a photograph of the couple in exactly that, lavender and pale yellow for her, pale blue for him, worn after the paebaek. 'Noooo,' came the reply. 'But don't mind me, I have too many opinions on hanboks because I was forced to do traditional dancing for my entire youth and own a gazillion hanboks of my own.'
The other was more technical. 'How they attached the danggi is CRIMINAL though,' wrote the commenter who had recognised the hwal-ot, referring to the ribbon that falls from the back of the bridal headpiece.
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A Venue with Family Roots
The choice of Seoul was personal. Stage 28, in the Gangdong district, is now an events space but once belonged to her grandparents. Her grandfather, actor Shin Young-kyun, owned the land, and she grew up in the garden and hills behind it. Her brother married there before her.
Plans had initially centered on a November wedding in California, but the couple shifted to Seoul, which left them roughly four months to arrange everything. 'Weaving traditional Korean wedding ceremonies into our wedding weekend was so special for us and our family,' she said.
The thread kept circling this point. Three designers made her dresses that could have been worn anywhere. Han Eun Hee produced something that only worked here.
