As a little girl, I can’t tell you the number of times I sang the “Bridal Chorus” from Wagner’s opera Lohengrin — the traditional wedding march played at most weddings in North America as the bride appears at the back of the assembly to meet her groom. Of course, the words I sang were a child-distorted version bearing no resemblance to the original text.

One incarnation of the song goes, “Here comes the bride, all dressed in white. She stepped on a turtle and down came her girdle.” Another is: “Here comes the bride, big, fat and wide. See how she waddles from side to side. Here comes the groom, skinny as a broom.”

Why is it that I can remember these words but not Bible verses? Why would these ridiculous lyrics be ingrained in my memory when worthier words aren’t? The answer is … wait for it … the number of times the given words were repeated and reinforced. Guess that shows I should have learned to sing Bible verses.

These days engaged couples are going all out to create a wedding that is an Event with a capital “E.” Perhaps one reason is the increasing number of brides who chose to hire a wedding planner. And once these entrepreneurs show prospective clients all the luxury accoutrements available, is it any surprise that they go for the “deluxe” package?

An advantage to hiring a wedding planner is that she (or he or an entire team) will handle every detail. If you’re wanting Hummer limos, your planner will take care of the limo hire. If you’re getting married abroad - and many couples are opting to do that - your planner will either do online research on, say, “limo hire Surrey” if that’s where the event will be held, or they will subcontract part of the overseas operation.

I “get” the allure of all this first class attention, but it saddens me. An entire village could be fed for months on the cost of a luxury wedding.

I have a friend that specializes in wedding photography.  She is a big camera nut and has been doing weddings for many years.  I have seen some of her work, and it is really quite amazing.

One of her biggest challenges as a business woman is that there are more wedding photographers in town now than there were just a couple of years ago.  It has meant that she has a lot more competition now than before, and it has been hard for her to keep up.

But, she has found another untapped market to offer her services to: weddings abroad.  She now offers to go anywhere in the world and do the wedding photographs at a very reasonable rate.

She has had a couple of clients already, and is going to Mexico next week for one of them.  It has been good to watch her adapt to changing market conditions and still be able to do what she loves: photograph weddings.

If you have not met my wife, you should.  She is one of the most creative and generous people that I have met.  But, there is one thing I don’t really like about her - she is a perfectionist.

With her perfectionism comes a price - if I mess up, there is a price to pay.  There is nothing more evident to this than our wedding day.

You see, she had a big list of everything that we needed for our wedding all drawn up when we sat down to discuss it.  She had split the list into tasks for both of us, and she told me to make sure that I did everything on the list.

Well, I thought I had done everything when I realized that I forgot to buy the wedding favors the day of the wedding.  I figured that missing something as simple as that would be okay, and that we could go on with the festivities.

Boy was I wrong!

My wife just about went to get the marriage annulled because of my little mistake.  So, husbands out there, make sure you do everything on your list for your wedding - or you might just find yourself with a lot of bills, and no wife.