Nearly one out every 10 couples standing in front of the wedding altar in South Korea today is saying "I do" in a different language.
That is because inter-racial marriages for Korean girls - who pride themselves in the unbroken 5,000-year-history of their homogeneous population - have drastically increased in recent years.
Last year alone, 6444 Korean girls tied the knot in the country with foreigners, according to latest data released by the National Statistical Office.
A total of 3,049,000 Korean marriages were registered in 2003, of which inter-racial marriages took up 8.4 percent.
This shows a sharp 61 percent increase over 2002, with the trend mainly, but not solely, accounted for by more Korean women seeking foreign men to marry.
But for 25-year-old Chang Eun-young, married life couldn't have been better if she'd married a Korean spouse.
Having met her American husband while studying abroad in Germany, she said it was love at first sight which led down the long and winding road toward wedlock against all the odds.
Chang says convincing her parents to agree to her marrying outside her race was a Himalayan obstacle that she had to overcome.
Their son Harunobu is what locals would generally refer to as a 'mut', a mixture from racially different parents who are now breaking away from Korea's homogeneous society.
Looking for love beyond national borders, 26-year-old Lee Kyung-hee said she wanted to marry a westerner. Lee questions why she needs to limit herself to one race when it comes to love.
"I like westerners such as Americans because, unlike the average Korean man, they are more gentle and expressive of their feelings," Lee said shyly. "If two people can mix their cultures well, they can be a fusion couple that has many benefits."
According to the NSO statistics, 8567 Korean women married foreign men last year.
Of them, American men were the top choice of husbands. Over 30 percent, or 2,913 Korean girls, took on American spouses, while 1,237 women married Canadians.
The third most popular race Korean women chose was Australian, with 1,199 tying the knot. Following in order are British, German, Swiss, Swedish, and Dutch male spouses.
Experts say it is obvious why American and European men are the top two choices for foreign husbands, because, most Korean girls who choose inter-racial marriages either want someone completely different from their own kind.
But the situation is very different for Korea's male population, which seems to prefer Asian foreign spouses.
NSO statistics also show that last year 19,214 Korean men were registered in inter-racial marriages. Of them, a whopping 69.6 percent, or 13,373, took on Chinese wives, while 1,403 men tied the knot with Vietnamese women and only 1,242 Korean men married Japanese women.
Filipino women were in fourth place followed by Thai, Uzbek, Mongolian and Russian.
Experts credit the trend to the increasing number of Korean men in rural farming regions who are taking on foreign wives, as the average male/female ratio in those areas has been declining drastically and, as a result, there aren't enough local women to marry.
Newlyweds Shin Eui-suk, 29, and Ngo Maylinh, 25, met three years ago, through an online matchmaking service. Shin, a third-generation farmer in Kimpo, Gyeonggi Province, was desperate to meet his soul mate as he was pressured by his family to marry, have children and have his offspring carry on the family name and inherit its land.
"It was the last resort for me to marry. Most Korean girls do not want to marry a farmer.
With its growing acceptance by Korean locals today, inter-racial marriage has come a long way in Korean society and it is expected to continue growing in the coming years, experts say.
But traditional attitudes of keeping a homogeneous race are still prevalent.
Even so, there is a growing number of Korean girls with independent minds and passion, who are going against all the odds to find their soul mate outside their own nationality.
Given this kind of thinking, if the trend continues for a few more years in this largely conservative and homogeneous Korean society, its people will learn to truly understand that love can reach beyond the borders of race and ethnicity.