Lately I've been feeling like a lot of what we do is hippocritical. This weekend with Easter here already it has really got me thinking. From work we get only Friday off and not Monday (unless we work for a bank or school). What about Easter Monday? Why do we celebrate the day that Jesus died, shouldn't we be celebrating the day he rose from the dead?

The bridal shower is an honoured tradition that most people (including myself) know very little about. This US custom is said to have evolved from the practice of giving a dowry. When a family could not afford a dowry, or when the parents of a bride did not approve of the match and refused to provide her with a dowry, friends of the bride would gather bearing gifts that would compose a makeshift dowry and allow her to marry the man of her choice. This beautiful tradition of celebrating love has devolved into a shameless grab for more gifts and money. I was recently introduced to the concept of a “Presentation Shower.” Since Google revealed little insight into the meaning of this concept I was forced to do my own research. Here are the two possible meanings: 1. Money Shower (in disguise) where everyone brings money and a large gift is then “presented” to the bride at the shower 2. Unwrapped gifts are expected and displayed on a table to avoid the lengthy gift opening portion of the shower Neither one of these options is appealing to me as a bride. I much prefer gifts over money and opening gifts is half the fun of receiving them. Since according to my research gift-giving is almost the entire purpose of having a bridal shower, there is no use in arguing this point. The money shower, however, is an ugly interpretation of the original intention and is widely viewed as both tacky and greedy. Is there really any polite way to ask for money? I think not. I can’t help but wonder… can we still call them “gifts” if they are required to be given?

In keeping with the wedding theme of this week my post today will be in regards to wedding invitations. As a proper lady (or at least I like to think of myself as classy) I did endless research on the etiquette behind the wedding invitation. Since this is the first glimpse into the wedding that guests will receive, I wanted to make sure it was done right. In my brief experience I have encountered some strange and unusual feedback on the subject which I will share with you. A few days after mailing the invitations I received a few emails and calls from excited guests complimenting the beauty of the invitation itself and expressing their excitement to attend. Mission accomplished! Thanks so my bridesmaids and mother (as well as my fiancé who had to tie the last remaining ribbons after the girls left because mine were appallingly bad). Then comes the strange part… I received comments of, “You didn’t need to send me an invitation.” And “[Groomsman] doesn’t need an invitation.” Now I ask you… Obviously the groomsmen are going to attend the wedding, but do they not deserve/need to be invited? Also, is it presumptuous to assume that the parents of the couple don’t need to be invited? Where do we draw the line? Would it get to the point where family would be insulted to receive an invitation because it means that they are not close enough to you that it was assumed that they would attend? I can’t help but wonder… why do we invite guests if they don’t want to be invited?

Weddings are a billion dollar business. This is no surprise. It seems that people can sell anything to a girl for her “special day” and brides are the most profitable market for retailers in the world. Yet in my experience there is one piece of this business that I find appalling: the wedding cake. In our quest for cakes we stumbled upon some of the worst scams imaginable. One store in particular handed me a menu of all the cake and filling flavours available, a long list. On the second page of the pamphlet it listed prices for cakes by size ranging from $20-$50 per cake. On display were tiered wedding cakes consisting of various sizes stacked on top of each other. A 12-inch cake topped by a 10-inch and an 8-inch looked just right to me. I added the numbers (my specialty): $40 + $30 +$20 = $90. Plus I assumed some decorating and delivery charges on top of this amount. I looked at the price tag on the display cake and gaped: $550 not including decoration or delivery. How could there be a $460 price difference? Was it just that the word “wedding” was included before the word “cake,” or was there more to it than that? Not one to shy away from conflict, and to give the shop the benefit of the doubt, I politely asked, “could you please explain why there is such a difference in price from your cake menu to the wedding cakes displayed?” I was then told with (I kid you not) annoyance that, “there is a lot more thought and planning that go into a wedding cake” and that I wouldn’t want a simple birthday cake that was just “slapped together.” Needless to say I was appalled by this and left the shop without purchasing anything. I can’t help but wonder… did our quest for cakes uncover something illegal or just unsavory?

I admit that I am a hopeless romantic. Even when reality proves me wrong, I hold on tightly to those images of flowers brought home for no reason, poems and songs written about me, and bended-knee declarations. So I am probably partly to blame for the events that unfolded following my truly romantic engagement. Still on a flowery, rosy high from the event, I plotted my first acts as a newly engaged woman. Of course, this involved the making of lists and the performing of research (okay so my methodical side is not very romantic). When I arrived at last at my most desired destination on the list: dress shopping, I faced nothing but disappointment. Let me first mention that I committed an apparent bridal faux-pas by wanting a gown that was (gasp) not strapless. Strapless gowns are not flattering on most people and I have seen too many wedding pictures with brides in beautiful dresses that are not suited to their body shape at all. Not wanting to be a beautiful girl in a beautiful dress where the combination was just average, I persisted. One store had only one dress for me to try on that was not strapless! Most other stores had rows and rows of dresses, hundreds in all, but only five to ten non-strapless ones for me to try. Finally I managed to find my dream dress in a magazine and have it special ordered by a family friend who owns a small bridal shop in a nearby town, where I could try it on before committing to buy. I still had my moment where my sister gasped and my mother cried and we knew that this was THE dress. But with all the drama leading up to that instant, it was a little less shiny than I had imagined. In the real world, the perfect strapless body shape is a minority and yet the dress selection does not reflect this. Why not? I can’t help but wonder… are the people who stock the stores with rows of “dream” dresses dreaming?

So today on Sunday, the day of rest, I want to share some more restful and inspiring photographs with you. As winter vanishes into the sunshine... I think of smoke and how it vanishes into the air. These photos (from flickr) show such talent with capturing the smoke... enjoy! Taken by: Alberich Mathews Taken by: Corica Taken by: Hughes Léglise-Bataille Taken by: Frances Dre

As an avid hockey fan, I am prone to my fair share of yelling at the referee when he makes a bad call. Okay, so admittedly I am that loud woman yelling at the referee after every bad call. So in fact, I am prone to a few people’s fair share of yelling. At this point in the game however, I have come to a revelation: the referee is just a man (usually), trying to do his job. Yet the thought still nags me… if I was to make so many mistakes in my job, would I still have one? A startling idea occurs to me: the referee is a bad-guy, just like in a fairy-tale. He gets away with doing all of his bad-guy things: missing an obvious tripping call, call an outrageous penalty, letting a fight go on too long when one player is seriously hurt, etc. BUT he never gets caught. No consequences. Now I realize that this seems entirely unfair and that, my friends, I’m afraid is the point. The bad guy is supposed to get away with things, you are supposed to hate him, and yet in the end, he always gets what he deserves. I’m heading to cheer on my Ice Dogs (OHL) tonight as they enter game 2 of the second round of the play-offs. For the referees of tonight’s game I have only one thing to say, “We all know how it ends for the bad guy, and it’s not happily ever after.” Who knows? Maybe tonight they’ll do a good, fair job and keep all the players (relatively) unharmed and safe. Still, I can’t help but wonder… who is refereeing the referees?

We all know them. We’ve all been there for the flashes. Perhaps we’ve even been a member of one. You know what I’m talking about: the infamous on-again-off-again relationship… I like to call them light bulbs. As a soon to be happily married female, I’m not afraid to admit that I have experienced this phenomenon first hand in the past. My current relationship, however, has been lights on all the time… no power outages, not even short ones. My light bulbs never lasted, and it seems to me that in hind sight, I always knew that once the light was extinguished, it would never burn as brightly as before. So I ponder the question of what advice should be given to the friend whose relationship is always breaking up and then getting back together. Isn’t it best to help them to break the cycle, cut their losses, and move on to a healthier happier future sooner rather than later? Or is it always best to stay on the sidelines and cheer them on with hope, even if we suspect that they are headed for a relationship Ground Hog Day. How many repeats does it take to get it right, or are they just trying to force something that has always been wrong. I don’t know of any light bulbs that have managed to overcome their yo-yo ways and make it work after all. I can’t help but wonder… do light bulb relationships always burn out?

Is the old adage of “in like a lion out like a lamb” always applicable to the month of March? I’ve always thought that old sayings like this hang around because there is truth in them, and maybe even wisdom. Now as March comes to a close, I ponder this saying and how it applies to March… and to life. “Things always seem to get worse before they get better” is another oldie, but goodie. And the message presented is really the same. Weather-wise this year it was quite true, the first week of March held wild temperature fluctuations from -16.7 to +16.4 in the Garden City (Celsius because I’m Canadian), along with snow. The last week of March was much milder and, aside from yesterday’s brief flutter of tiny flakes that never even made it to the ground, no snow. Is weather really the main event here? I like to think that there is more to it than that. For me, the winter brings along a brand of sadness, maybe not depression, but a general feeling of low energy and loneliness. In like a lion. The beginning of spring brings a renewed sense of hope and optimism along with the return of the sun. Out like a lamb. I think if you look into your own life you’ll find numerous ways to apply the metaphor of March. Perhaps it is really just about life’s ebbs and flows, ups and downs, highs and lows. I can’t help but wonder… would we appreciate the lambs without the lion’s roar?