Eighty-one Years Ago

I love these pictures - taken eighty-one years ago today...

The happy faces... 

These wedding pictures were taken at my mother's parents' home in rural South Edmonton - where the reception was held. It's hard to recognize many of the faces - but I do see several of my mother's brothers surrounding her and my dad, the newlyweds: Erhardt, Ted, possibly Bill, possibly Herb.

I never got to know my mother's two bridesmaids - but the flower girl / junior bridesmaid,  is my cousin, Eleanor, my father's niece. I knew her well. She and her family even attended my wedding in Montreal years later.

I often wondered if this picture of my mother next to her wedding cake - a cake she decorated herself - superimposed on the picture of her in her wedding dress... (like a ghostly apparition) was an accidental "double exposure"... Or was it planned?!

She kept the top layer of the cake in our "China cabinet" for many years. I used to ask her about it: Do you really plan to eat it sometime?! 

I think she decided not to take it with us when we moved from Red Deer to Kelowna. By then it would have been 15 years old!

Today, my thoughts are there with them - on what would be my parents' eighty-first wedding anniversary.