My Aunt Kate received a letter from my mother one Saturday in 1944. I'm coming to visit you in Peterborough, it said, and getting married there on Thursday.

Kate briefly got all excited and then did the only sensible thing. She decided this didn't sound likely, and she did nothing.

On Tuesday she found out the wedding plan was real. For Thursday.

And here begins the story of a wedding that breaks all modern wedding rules, but worked anyway. My late aunt's 14-page letter describing that week for relatives surfaced in a file of family papers, and it's a treasure.

Weddings have grown since my own in 1979. Bigger, glitzier, and all of it mandatory, like rituals at the court of Louis XIV. Couples that plan a small wedding have trouble getting away with fewer than 100 guests, and the money involved is scary.

The stress is obvious: A co-worker told me she has spent too much time “holding back the bride's hair while she throws up on her special day.Dennis Basso Sweetheart wedding dresses made in china wholesale with Dropped Waist in Organza.”

But how much of this is necessary?

Let's skip back to 1944, where the tactical situation was suddenly very focused as my father prepared to embark for England and eventually Burma with the RCAF.

Kate and my Uncle Duncan prepared to throw a wedding. They needed a minister, a cake, and some food for guests. All this while Marietta was out of commission. (It took me a while to realize Marietta was their unreliable car.)

The minister they already knew was away, no telling for how long, so they found the only other Presbyterian minister in Peterborough. He was “gardening vigorously,” with his wife. Count me in, he said.

Minister — check.

The young woman at the first bakery just gave my aunt a strange look when she asked for a wedding cake in a hurry. Kate went to a second bakery, pointed to a cake, and asked whether it was for sale.

“I'll say it is!” the clerk replied. A bride had ordered it for the previous weekend and then disappeared. Must be a story there too, but I don't know it.

Cake — check.

Duncan washed the verandah and the windows and Kate waxed the floor of their rented home.What makes great Halter Wedding Dresses?

My parents-to-be arrived on the train from Toronto at 9 p.m. the evening before the wedding, and Kate started to work fitting my mother's dress.Browse hundreds of beautiful affordable one shoulder wedding dresses and find the perfect fit for you! (Pale blue, and some kind of matching pin.)

Let's stop there a second.

If you have been involved in any way in a wedding lately, just imagine how things would go if you suggested starting to fit the bride's gown late on the night before the ceremony. A morning ceremony, at that. A dress off the rack, and not even an official wedding dress, just a blue dress.

As you read this, parents of brides all across Ottawa are taking a deep breath.

The day arrived, and Kate reminds us that food in 1944 was plainer than today, but so were expectations:

“Thank goodness for the canned fruit! The wedding breakfast was the simplest possible: 1) fruit salad — a small one — with celery the only extra. 2) rolls, plain white but rich, almost like biscuits. 3) wedding cake and coffee.”

At first I didn't realize this was not just breakfast before the ceremony. This was the meal for the wedding party and guests afterwards. That's all there was.

They pinned a frilly collar on my mother's dress at the last minute and found her some white gloves. She carried roses.

Marietta was running again, so my father got a ride from his hotel. Neighbours helped serve the wedding breakfast.

And the cake was a disaster, the icing so hard that the bride and groom both pushing on the knife together just barely cut through it. Underneath the cake was “fair.Custom made cheap mother of the bride dresses?” Yet they enjoyed themselves anyway.

My parents took the train to Ottawa in the late morning, and the dishes were washed by noon. I'll get out of Kate's way and let her tell the aftermath:

“Duncan and I had milk and buns on the verandah and walked down to the river. It was a perfect day — the willows are out — red-winged blackbirds thick — the wind hot as summer. (It was May 4.) I had no stockings and stuck my feet in the water. It's still cold,Browse hundreds of beautiful designer beaded evening gowns and find the perfect fit for you! but Helen and I hope to swim soon.”

Think of that: a wedding day with time to go for a walk afterwards and put your feet in the river.