I told Brian B. yesterday I was going to write about Herman's Hermits today. I sat for hours and knew what I was going to say, but I just couldn't write it.  My brain was spinning, so I put on one of my favourite movies called "Betsy's Wedding". After the movie I sifted through my limited photographs, and looked at wedding pictures feeling quite glum.

This was my grandfather Crittenden's marriage, and we were at the CNR train station in Montreal. He took the picture, and the woman standing behind me is my mother. Grandpa Crit had been married more times than the fingers on my lace gloved hands.

My mother was not smiling much because he never really paid attention to her, and she was his only child. She had been in the hospital since she was 14, and her last stepmother had burned all her belongings. He never made it to her funeral either.  He said he could not afford to come. That grandfather of mine was a real lemon sour puss!

This is Verna Wilson's wedding. Her mother, our next door neighbour, looked after us for a period of time when my mother was in the hospital. I will remember this wedding forever, as my mother made my sister and I these pink swiss dot dresses.

Sadly, she was hospitalized the next day, not to come out again for a very long time. Verna also died very young like my mother did, and left two young  daughters. I loved her mother Meg, and she used to make us yellow paraffin wax candles with sparkles in them..

This is my childhood friend Sheila. Sheila and Neil are one of the very few people I know that are still married after decades. They fell in love on a bus that took them home every weekend from Montreal. They ended up living in a small town, and have three wonderful children.

I have three words to say about her wedding that I was the Maid of Honour at.

'The Best Man!"

He tried to make me the filling in his lemon bar. It just wasn't going to happen!

This is my father's second marriage. His wife Dorothy and I never really got along.  We were both opposites, but I should have made a better effort. 

I wore all black to their wedding. I wore a Twiggy velvet mini dress,  and a long Dr. Zhivago coat. My grandmother did make Lemon Meringue squares though for the wedding. They are featured on the right hand side of the photo.

This is a photo from my first marriage. I made my dress, and my grandmother finished it because she said I would be walking down the aisle without the hem finished.

She was probably right. Even in Home Economics I made great outfits but never did the hems. My sister is the one in the lemon yellow and white dress. She told me the marriage was not going to work out, and she was right. Barely two years later we were divorced.

My grandmother made lemon bars for the reception, and then packed a doggie bag/box for us for our honeymoon. I guess she thought we would be hungry. I wasn't.

This is a favourite customer of mine when I had my store. Her hair used to be the colour of lemons.  I used to design a lot of wedding dresses because the Hallmark Channel lives inside of me. Notice that I am wearing a hot pink bodysuit as clothing. I dressed like that for years.

I could never get the movie Flashdance out of my system. 

This is another couple I miss greatly, and they are still married.

Dan and Cindy are really good people, and I designed all the dresses for their wedding. Her sister Pamela standing next her was about "14 months" pregnant.

We thought she might have the baby at the wedding. That baby became the yellow sunshine of her life.

This is my son Perry and his bride Stephanie. Old souls that I know will make the journey. I wish my parents had met my sons. My father said I would never have any children because I was so strange.

I am so strange I went the wrong way when I was leaving the reception. I was so confused in the dark, that I kept driving down the dirt road not knowing where I was going. I nearly landed my mother in law and I smack in the middle of the rushing Clyde River.

Now that would have been just lemony.

Am I missing any pictures?  I am missing a picture of my sister Robin's wedding. I have a picture of me somewhere in the suit I wore to her wedding. It was a white suit with a jade green blouse, a pink corsage and a Prince Valiant haircut. That is all I have to remember her wedding by.

Since she died many years ago I cannot call her up and ask her for one to put up here. We stopped talking because my stepmother wanted me to wear a bright Lemon coloured dress as Maid of Honour. Everyone got caught up into the argument and we did not speak for years. Absolutely ridiculous! I wish I could have those years back.

"I promise to be true to you in good times and in bad, in sickness and in health. I will love you and honour you all the days of my life. I promise to have and to hold from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health until death do us part."

This should be memorized by families, not the bride and groom -  because one day you are here and the next day you might not be. Like the members of my family.

Today's words to share.

Dedicated to my sister Robin. If I had to do it all over again I would wear the ugly Lemon coloured dress. I would have not been so mellow yellow.

 So today's recipe is for Lemon Bars because it is the colour of sunshine.

 Words and Photos: Linda Seccaspina 2010

                                       Lemon Bars