Hallyu star Bae Yong Joon and his fiancée, singer-actress Park Soo Jin, have set a wedding date and it's sooner than many people expected.
The couple will marry on July 27 at the W Seoul Walkerhill hotel in Seoul. The early date surprised many as the couple only announced their engagement on May 12. After the announcement the actor posted a message on Instagram, thanking his fans for their congratulatory messages.
"I'm just so glad that I met the love of my life. I'll see you at my joyous wedding."
At that time a statement from their agency, Key East, said the couple would marry in the fall.
But then the relationship itself also caught many by surprise. Park Soo Jin has only known Bae Yong Joon since 2014 when she joined Key East, the agency in which he is a majority shareholder. By February 2015 the couple was already seriously dating.
Bae and Park reportedly bonded over shared interests, such as playing golf and enjoying fine wines. He was attracted to her cheerful optimistic personality and she liked the fact he was warm and sensitive. They went public with their relationship in May and took wedding photos in June at his Sunbook Dong home. They tried to keep the wedding photo shoot a secret, by using his home as a backdrop and carefully hiring photographers that promised to be discreet, but the news leaked out anyway. Her close friends Wang Ji Hye, Kim Sung Eun and Lee Yeon Doo were present as bridesmaids for the wedding photos.
The photo shoot implied that they might move their wedding date up from the fall, but it was still unexpected that the ceremony would take place in a matter of weeks.
The 42-year-old actor became an international star when he appeared in the 2002 k-drama "Winter Sonata. "Winter Sonata" is the drama credited as launching the Hallyu. The actor is popular in Japan where he is known as Yon-Sama. His last drama role was in "Dream High," although he had a cameo role in "The King of Dramas." Bae previously dated music video and commercial director Lee Sa Gang. They broke up in 2004. In Dec. 2013 he was said to be dating 27-year-old Goo So Hee, the second daughter of the vice president of an electronics company.
Park Soo Jin, 29, was formerly a member of the k-pop girl group Sugar. Another former Sugar member is actress Hwang Jung Eum. Park's recent drama roles include playing Park Shin Hye's funny frenemy in "Flower Boys Next Door" and Mo Seol in "The Blade and the Petal." Park dated soccer player Baek Ji Hoon for about five years and the couple broke up in 2013.
