Have Your Free Cake And Chocolate-Covered Croutons, Too!

Yesterday was day two of Canada’s Bridal Show at the Metro Convention Centre (still on until 6pm today). It’s apparently “The Big One” for brides-to-be in our city, with over 400 vendors coming to peddle all kinds of stuff you didn’t even know you needed to have in order to publicly express your love for another person. Just walking in the door you're handed a bag containing, among other things, a package of "slightly spiced" chocolate-covered croutons. Yum?

Now, anyone who’s read a bridal magazine knows the jist of what’s out there – fancy seat-covers, a plethora of 905 banquet halls, china patterns and of course, a million variations of the Big White Dress. But cover a few football fields worth of space with hundreds of versions of all of this stuff and it’s a different story. There’s a big difference between flipping through the hundreds of ads in one of those thick bible-sized magazines and being face-to-face with hundreds of people shoving flyers and samples into your hands. William Ashley was giving out huge tote bags and there was not a single attendee who didn’t have theirs digging into their shoulders by the end of the day.

Most of the things available were your average wedding-y loot – fancy, but not too ostentatious versions of the same kinds of cake, stationery, dresses and favours that most people choose one or the other of at some point in putting together almost any wedding. But the show did offer some truly amazing ways to make your special day stand out if you really want it to…

• For $250, you can get a woman to come to your wedding and release two doves from a basket of your choosing (although the real bargain appears to be the 24-dove release for only $450). You get to pick the style of basket she drives them up in (believe it or not there are lots to choose from). Presumably she shows up, opens the basket, and seven seconds of dove-y goodness ensues. When asked if the doves just live there now, she replied that they fly back to her and she takes them back to her farm again. Who knew doves delivered such heavy ROI?
• If releasing stuff into the air is your bag but you don’t like doves, you can get an assortment of butterflies for your wedding. As little as $125 will get you 12 monarchs or 18 painted ladies stuffed into creepy little triangular boxes (see photo). The idea is that guests each open their own box and the little guys flutter around you as you leave whatever venue you’ve just gotten married in. Assuming, that is, that the guests know what’s in the boxes and don’t crush them first trying to open them and find out.
• An invitation vendor was making the once-in-a-lifetime offer of a free Elvis with every purchase. They’re not kidding, either – with every purchase of their stationery, you get a performance from an 11-year-old Elvis impersonator who was ranked #3 at the Collingwood Elvis Festival. There was no mention of how much it would cost for Elvis not to attend your wedding.
• You can herd your wedding party and guests onto a double-decker bus or into a giant SUV limo. They were at the show on display and available for walk-throughs. The big question is, though, how did they get there? Seriously, the show is on the second floor. Does the Convention Centre have an elevator big enough to fit a double-decker bus into? If anyone knows how they did this, please fill Torontoist in.

Some things truly worth seeing in the whole show, however, are the dozens of amazing wedding cakes on display. They range from the astounding (seven-tier jobs running well over $1000 each) to the silly (a cake in the shape of a Louis Vuitton handbag?). Even if obsessively-decorated pastries aren’t your thing, who doesn’t love a free slice or three? If nothing else, it’ll give you the energy to haul your William Ashley tote bag full of all of the other swag home.