Vancouver (Toronto Star) – …. As my new fiancé watched movies and dozed on the flight back home, I filled up a notebook with To-do lists and ideas for the wedding.

I was happy. There was no existential dread, no worries about the looming social context or symbolism. Luckily for us, no one was going to force us to have a wedding that went against our ideals.

But with a fast-track plan to make a June 2020 wedding date work, my real shock would arrive.

The cost. Oh my god, the cost.

The average Canadian salary is about $56,000 a year. The average cost of a wedding and honeymoon? A whopping $46,400!

Overnight, I had seemingly entered a parallel universe, one in which beautiful women in Vancouver’s Gastown boutiques didn’t bat an eye as they cheerily told me a waist-length veil would cost $600.

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