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Summer time means lots of weddings and, accordingly, lots of wedding socials. (If you’re not from Manitoba and don’t know what I’m talking about, see here.)

Over the weekend I attended Stacey & Joël’s social at the Crescentwood Community Centre. I didn’t actually take any photos — I only took video shots with my June scrapbook in mind. Here’s the happy couple dancing:

That same night, my friend Cynara was attending a non-wedding social that was (partially) in her honour in another part of town. She and some other social-goers took this photo, which, it has been suggested, might well-serve the Wikipedia entry linked above.

The rye bread, the cheese cubes, the mustard, the cold cuts.

I haven’t gone to near as many wedding socials as most. This partly has to do with my religious upbringing and also to do with the fact that apparently my friends are not (yet) the marrying kind. That said, anyone who’s spoken with me on the subject knows I have myriad opinions on the subject of what I call the Wedding Economy. That term, for me, does not refer to the increasingly consumer-based nature of the wedding, the thousands of dollars in debt, the expensive dresses and over-budget extravagance, though I’m not a fan of that, either. What I’m talking about is the understood material transfer that takes place when one attends a wedding. The expectation that your gift is basically payment for an ticket invitation to the party. And of course, nowadays, that “gift” is usually expected to be money, with everyone putting in small-to-medium font in the bottom corner of the invitation, “Presentation.”

To me, this feeling of commercial transaction that has come to underlie all wedding invitations is uncomfortable (at best — distasteful at worst).

I don’t write this a an indictment to anyone reading who has had a wedding or even put the dreaded P-word on the invite. I’m just saying I hate it when social interactions run parallel to monetary ones, which it often feels that weddings do.

In Manitoba, where wedding socials are essentially fundraisers, the proceeds going towards the ceremony/reception, a house down payment, a honeymoon, what-have-you, there has been some backlash against the concept. It comes quite understandably, I think, from people who have felt obligated to attend many, many socials over the years and thus have been rather exhausted by the Top-40 playlists, the endless parade of silent auctions, the watery cocktails and yes, the sweaty cubes of cheese on the buffet table. There’s also been backlash against couples soliciting businesses for wedding social silent auction prize donations.

Still, the wedding social is a part of the Wedding Economy I have less issue with, on the basis that the obligations involved are less murky. Ten dollars usually gets you in the door, to enjoy DJed music (of varying quality; always check before you go. Stacey hired the city’s premier party DJ), to drink inexpensive liquor (something in which I no longer partake, but hardly begrudge anyone who does), and to eat the oft-maligned but no-less-delicious social spread (the rye, the meat, the cheese). As for the silent auction — hey, some people get off on that. I, never being much of a gambler, don’t, but I also do know people who have won freakin’ Wii gaming systems at socials, so there you go.