The Grooms Wore Louis Vuitton, Ralph Lauren, and Custom Hanbok for Their Seattle Wedding
Jason Kim Vaughn and Patrick Vaughn’s first date didn’t quite go as planned. It was 2014, and Patrick had asked Jason out after connecting on a dating app at Harvard, where Jason was on a gap year from his studies at the Graduate School of Design, and Patrick was in his first year at the School of Dental Medicine. A big snowstorm hit Boston, and they couldn’t make it to the restaurant Patrick had chosen for the date. Instead, Jason suggested they go to a cozy shabu-shabu spot nearby.
This pivot turned out to be for the best. “I remember being completely charmed as I watched him try to eat with chopsticks to impress me,” Jason shares. “So focused, so earnest, and utterly adorable that I reached across the table and taught him how to use them properly.”
After his gap year, Jason went back to finish his architecture degree, and the two embarked on a “mini-distance” relationship, traveling between the Design School in Cambridge and the Dentistry School in Boston to see each other. “For years we traveled back and forth between the two, finding excuses to spend time at each other’s school,” says Jason, who is an architect and artist. “I still have stacks of dorm sign-in sheets from Vanderbilt Hall, the Medical School dormitory where Patrick used to live.”
A few years into dating, they had a private engagement just between the two of them. Then, in January 2024, Patrick surprised Jason with a second proposal. “We had his two best friends visiting, and I had us all dress up for a photoshoot to celebrate their decade of friendship as a decoy. I made them do full hair and makeup, but that didn’t make him suspicious at all,” says Patrick, who is an oral and maxillofacial surgeon. “After we all got ready, we went down by the water near the Ferris wheel at the waterfront. I knelt down on one knee and asked him to marry me. He was so shocked he was speechless, but luckily, there were passersby shouting at us, ‘Say yes!’”
When it came to planning the wedding, the couple’s individual strengths made for a good balance. “I knew exactly what I wanted our wedding to look like, and Patrick knew exactly what he wanted our wedding to feel like,” says Jason. “We said I was in charge of design and he was in charge of experiences.”
The couple worked with wedding planner Sarah Swanson of Eventful Moments. They held the wedding on September 20, 2025, in Seattle, with two ceremonies at the Admiral’s House—“a traditional western ceremony and a pyebaek, which is a Korean ceremonial tradition,” Jason explains—and a reception at the Fairmont Olympic.
For their wedding ceremony, it was important to them to include as many family members as possible. Their goddaughters and nephews served as flower girls and ring bearers, leading the procession down the aisle. Catherine, Patrick’s older sister, officiated, and Rachel, the couple’s oldest friend, served as emcee. At the ceremony, Audrey, Patrick’s younger sister, read an excerpt from the Supreme Court’s 2015 decision in Obergefell v. Hodges.
The couple wrote their own vows. “Patrick’s vows centered on our early love story and his experience of the historic day when the Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage in the US,” Jason explains. “When he heard the news, he jumped on a bus from Boston to New York City to surprise me while I was living there. Then, when it was my turn to read my vows, I had Fabi, my woman of honor, hand me my red diary from 2015.” Jason read an entry from that same day. “We had no idea that both of our vows would recount that momentous day, and everyone, including the two of us, was shocked and in awe.”
For their pyebaek, they honored tradition while adapting the ceremony to reflect their families, cultures, and same-sex union. “We included a broader group of loved ones, such as our chosen family, rather than limiting participation to elderly relatives, as is traditionally done,” Jason shares. “During the ceremony, each group shared marriage and life advice, along with lessons they’ve learned over the years, and tossed dried dates and walnuts toward us, symbolizing the number of children the couple will have. We caught so many that we are going to have at least 80 children!”
They ended the ceremony with the “jujube kiss,” where the newlyweds share a single jujube using only their mouths. “Whoever ends up with the seed is said to have the final say in the relationship, and I think I got it!” Jason says. To finish, Patrick gave Jason a piggyback ride around the ceremony table—“a symbolic gesture representing the groom’s strength and promise to support their partner both literally and figuratively, throughout our married life,” Jason explains.
One special touch in their wedding decor was paper flowers by Quynh Nguyen of Pink and Posey, a Seattle-based paper floral sculptor. “She created oversized blooms inspired by two flowers we hold closely to our hearts: the water lily and the mugunghwa, Korea’s national flower,” Jason says. “The lilies were a quiet homage to Patrick’s favorite painting of mine, the one I showed him on our very first date that he made his phone background right after and he eventually got a hold of it when we visited my parents in Toronto.”
When it came to the couple’s outfits, Jason always knew he wanted a “mix of tradition and modernity.” For the wedding ceremony, he wore a tuxedo from Louis Vuitton, and Patrick wore Ralph Lauren. They wore Ralph Lauren Purple Label bow ties and Boss shoes, and accessorized with meaningful family pieces. “Patrick wore his late father’s gold cufflinks and button studs, and I wore another style of his father’s cufflinks, along with his vintage gold watch loaned to me by his mother,” says Jason.
For their pyebaek ceremony, they wore custom hanbok by MeeHee Hanbok, a Korean-American hanbok designer. “I wanted something more modern, breaking away from the traditional pyebaek look,” Jason says. “The ceremony itself is very traditional, so I envisioned something lighter and easier on the eyes, rather than the deep colors and heavy silk garments that newlyweds typically wear. She also incorporated embroidered cranes sourced from Korea, a symbol of longevity in both life and love.”
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