Our Wedding

The whole big wedding with puffy white dresses and high stress was never a dream of mine, nor of Jean's. We thought that having a party to celebrate the wedding would be fun, but we wanted to dispense with the other formalities.

Turns out, though, that it can be a little complicated trying to do things simply.

Everything started out well. We booked Northern College (in Timmins) for a wedding reception in October. We chose menus and worked on the guest list. We also booked a three-week Honeymoon in Europe — to occur the month before the Reception, but that was OK. Now we just had to find a way to get married.

Our first idea was to get married while in Europe. Unfortunately, research revealed that Europe is not Vegas, or the Caribbean. That is, you can't just go there and get married.

Next we went to visit a priest at the Catholic church nearest to where we lived. He informed us that there was no way we could get married within the next four or five months. We'd need at least a year to organize a wedding at that church.

Well, that wasn't going to work, since we really did want to be married before our Reception (and ideally before the Honeymoon).

Using a Justice of the Peace or a freelance minister were possibilities, but both seemed a little too charmless.

In the end, Mom came through with a solution, as Moms are wont to do. She arranged for us to meet with her priest, the singular Father Les Costello of the Flying Fathers (and once a player for the Toronto Maple Leafs).

So we drove to Timmins and met with Father Les. He ensured that we were getting along well with each other and didn't harbour any ill-will toward the Catholic Church. He agreed to marry us at his church, and opened up his appointment book.

“There's an opening two weeks from today,” he said.

That was July 18. “Hey, we have to come to Timmins that weekend, anyway,” I pointed out. We had to be there for a wedding, anyway; friends of ours, Simon and Lucie, were getting married that day.

Their wedding was at 2:00, so we made our appointment for 3:00.

So how do you organize a church wedding in two weeks? Well, if you keep it simple, it's not that hard. I got my dress at The Bay ($60, and I got to wear it again). We bought rings at a local jeweler (an opal for me; Mom complained I couldn't be traditional about anything). We invited only immediate family, plus a few extra aunts and uncles. Mom arranged for the music and flowers. My uncle videotaped the ceremony; Father Les said that anyone could take photos, so we ended up with plenty to choose from. We selected readings and readers. Voila.

The funny thing is, we actually went to our friends' wedding before our own. We had to sneak out before they were done, and arrived at our church just as people were starting to wonder if we had gotten cold feet.

It was a lovely little ceremony — no stress. It was a beautiful day (one of the only sunny Saturdays that whole summer), and we gathered for a wine and cheese at Jean's Mom's afterward.

Then we went to our friends' Reception. (We were kind of late for that.) Our friend Sylvie guessed almost right away what was up. Later in the evening, we started telling other people.

That's not all, though. Years earlier, Jean had entered in a bet with four other guys. The first among them to get married had to pay each of the others $50. So who else was in the bet? Simon, of course. He'd lost the bet by about 1 hour.

(By the way, Jean did give Simon the money back as part of the wedding gift, as did the others who were in on it.)

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