fondant & frills

Lately, I've been feeling rather old. Not because of any physical ailments or memory lapses, but because a very select few of my friends are 'grown ups'. Aside from my friend having a baby in October, a friend from high school became engaged before Christmas. And these friends are my age. Needless to say, I have found myself buying baby toys way earlier than I anticipated. However, I began to feel young again when I went to Bridal Show on the weekend. A few of my friends had 2 for 1 coupons and needed another person to fill in for the discount.

Bridal Shows are not for the faint-hearted. They are full of Bridezillas, Mother of the Bridezillas and poor, hopeless Fathers of the Bridezillas and grooms who want a say in the wedding but had no idea an hour long fashion show was part of the bargain. The Metro Toronto Convention Centre had rows and rows of booths filled with information about tanning, flowers, party buses, limos, country clubs, dresses, photography and (Thank God for this last one) cake. Which hideous piece of bunched up pastel fabric would you choose to torment your bridesmaid with? Which terrible deejay who spinned your senior prom would you like your guests to be getting down to?

I have never been to a wedding but going to this made it very easy to tell what I would never want my wedding to look like. My friend posed as the bride-to-be and the woman trying to sell us a date at a ritzy golf and country club for an outdoor wedding next spring (ohh, say June, there's hardly any rain then) said we were too young to be getting married. I thought it was pretty refreshing to have someone tell us this after cake makers and photographers kept pushing their pamplets in our hands. This didn't stop her from giving us her card but at least someone recognized that we were young, some may say too young, to be even thinking about this kind of thing. The cake samples, however, were definitely worth the entry fee. I think I've decided that the food, the open bar and the music are the most important part of a wedding. Oh, and the union of marriage of course.