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This weekend, a family friend got married and it was a joyous occasion. A very relaxed wedding in the country (the bride and groom are not quite as young as they look) where fun was had by all, despite the poor weather. My friend Jayne pointed out that rain on a wedding day is considered by many to be a sign of good luck, so Jon and Heidi can add that to the list of reasons why they’re gonna make it.

This shot was taken after the ceremony in the foyer of the church, where we all relaxed with cups of coffee, hot chocolate and chai. The wedding party took photos before the ceremony, so they were all free to hang out with their guests before the ceremony.

That’s my brother (right) and his friend and fellow groomsman Josh serenading us during the post-ceremony coffee time.

It was a lovely day, filled with music, delicious food, adorable children, surprise U2 cover bands, French-Canadians and dramatic kisses.

When I saw this trio of ladies sitting on a sofa at the reception, I had to snap a picture. You may know about my fascination with old ladies. I think of my preoccupation with the old lady aesthetic as a preparation for the day in the future when I will wholeheartedly embrace it as my look. (You might argue I already have with all the cardigans and brooches, but.) Anyway, these ladies look great, dressed up in suits and corsages. Plus, the two on the right traveled all the way from Ireland for the wedding! The woman on the right, the groom’s grandmother, came from Ontario, which is also impressive but, let’s face it, not as onerous as a trans-Atlantic journey.

Last week I participated in yet another rite of wedding season — the bridal shower. A family friend (son of my mom’s good friend, high school friend of my brother, who is in the wedding party) is getting married at the end of the month, and so my mom and I participated in the throwing of a shower for his intended.

I think I can take credit for coming up with the idea that frees us from the seemingly-obligatory and uniformly awful bridal shower games. I just have no interest in any of the following:

1. Making wedding dresses out of toilet paper

2. Playing “What’s Missing from the Tray?” memory games

3. Playing “How Well Do You Know the Bride?” trivia games

4. Anything else called an “icebreaker.”

So here’s what we do. We specify that all guests bring one or two favourite recipes. When they arrive, we have tables set up, laden with patterned paper, stickers, pens and markers, and scissors. Then we get everyone to “scrapbook” their recipe onto a page. I typically lead everyone in this activity, and I stress that it’s a no-pressure kind of thing. You can just glue the recipe card down and stick a sticker on and be done. Or, for those who are comfortable with fancier techniques, you can mat your recipe and draw illustrations or whatever. Basically, these are skills you learned in kindergarten, so just go for it!

At the end of the shower, we gather all the pages and place them in page protectors and put them in a nice binder. The bride goes home with an artifact that’s not only useful (containing many excellent, tried-and-true recipes), but a tangible expression of love.

The other benefit to doing the scrapbooking during the shower is that it truly is a great icebreaker. You give people a project and it gives them something to chat about even if they have nothing else in common but a relationship to the bride or groom.

Another tip for a successful shower, especially one where not everyone knows each other, is to make detailed nametags. This was my mom’s idea — she made simple pin-on nametags that had the individual’s name, their relationship to the bride or groom (“Groom’s grandmother,” “Bride’s friend”) and also put the neighbourhood or town the person hails from. I suppose that might be too dorky for some, but I’m an advocate of name-tagging at these kinds of social events.

I’ll leave you with an adorable shot of the bride (left) and her sisters.

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.