Field note: adapted from our Korean write-up of a September 2024 celebration. We paid for the rentals, rice cakes, balloon and meals ourselves. The figures show our 2024 scale, not current quotes. I have left the small businesses unnamed because the packages are dated and one restaurant mistake does not deserve a permanent search result.
In Korea the hundredth day after a baby is born, baek-il (백일), is marked with a small celebration. Some families book a venue. We did it at home: set the table, take the photographs, go out for the meal afterwards.
Then the calendar interfered. Her hundredth day fell inside the Chuseok holiday week, when both sides of the family had their own obligations and neither could travel to us. No single day worked for everyone.
So We Ran the Same Party Twice
Our solution was to hold it on the weekend before, with my husband's family on the Saturday and mine on the Sunday. Two full run-throughs of the same event in two days.
Written down, the plan looked neat and fair. Lived, it was two consecutive days of hosting, ceremonial clothes, photographs and a restaurant meal. The table only had to be set once; everything else happened twice.
Renting the Table
The centrepiece of a baek-il celebration is the table, and renting one is completely normal here. I booked ours around the fifty-day mark, the first thing I organised.
The process was refreshingly low-tech: message the shop on KakaoTalk, fill in a reservation form in the chat, transfer the payment. That is the whole transaction.
I chose a simpler set rather than an elaborate one. At about 55,000 won it was at the affordable end and included a hanbok, which suited what I wanted: clean and photogenic rather than crowded. I then added a second hanbok for another 30,000 won, because I have no self-control about hanbok. I do not regret it.
The logistics were the best part. The set arrived Thursday, I checked the contents that evening, and we unpacked on Friday night for the first photographs. We styled the table Saturday morning, left it standing through both events, and on Monday a text confirmed the return was logged. Collection was Tuesday. At no point did I carry anything anywhere.
The supplier also included a woven straw mat for a second photographic setup. I kept the resulting baby pictures in the family archive rather than republishing them here.
The Rice Cakes
Custom tteok, Korean rice cake, is the other fixed element. Our area has two shops with a reputation for celebration orders, one cheaper than the other. I went with the more expensive one, entirely on instinct.
Because we ran two events, I split the order into two batches. One set combined honey seolgi, sorghum-and-red-bean cake (수수팥떡) and honey songpyeon for 82,000 won. Without the sorghum-and-red-bean cake it was 56,000 won.
The surprise was that the sorghum-and-red-bean cake was by some distance my favourite of the three.
My one criticism is quantity. Between two sets of parents, one sibling household and packets sent home with everyone, it evaporated. I like honey seolgi and I got exactly one taste of it.
The Balloon I Nearly Skipped
Balloons were never in the plan. They arrived because I looked at the simpler table set and worried it would photograph as sparse.
So the day before, I panic-ordered from a local balloon shop, picking on colour since the designs are broadly similar. They accepted a next-day order, I approved the mock-up the following morning and collected that afternoon.
It was larger than I had pictured and filled the frame properly. Without it the table would have looked thin in photographs, and I would have noticed every time I looked at them.
Floated above the baby, the balloon held her attention. A week later it was still on the ceiling, although the smaller balloons inside had visibly shrunk. The shop sent care notes with a warning not to inhale the high-purity helium, an instruction worth repeating rather than skimming.
How the Two Days Actually Went
Saturday did not follow the plan. My husband's family arrived later than expected, so we ate first. The restaurant had not recorded our confirmed time and headcount. Outside the lunch rush we found a table; at peak time we might not have. The food was still good.
We came home for photographs. The moment that stayed with me was my mother-in-law seeing the baby in formal hanbok. That reaction was the reason for doing the ceremony twice.
Sunday was a faster start: collect the second batch of rice cakes, go to church, then reset for my own family. Watching the youngest cousin stay beside the baby was the best part of that day.
After the photographs we went out for tofu. At that restaurant the upstairs private room required a higher-priced set menu as well as advance booking; booking early alone would not have changed our table. That detail belongs to one 2024 meal, not every tofu restaurant.
What Was Left on Sunday Night
Very little rice cake, one shrinking balloon and a table still standing in the living room. We never once got the lid off the rice-cake box before the photographs began.
Our one hundred days became two parties in two days. The rental made that possible: set it once, rotate the families, and let the same small table carry both celebrations.
Sources checked
Last reviewed August 29, 2026.
- Original Korean review – renting a table for a home baek-il party — Naver Blog (banggujin)
Schedules, prices and operating rules can change. Where a detail is time-sensitive, the linked operator remains the final authority.
