The Old Mill Chapel It Is.

With Bonnie now temporarily living at my apartment, although not the perfect solution it seemed to be working out just fine. We both knew that she would never be going back to live at her grandmother’s apartment ever again. If and when her father did eventually move out, we most likely would already be married anyways.

Don had no job, no income and there was no doubt he would continue living at Helen’s for as long as he wanted. It was his only option because he had no other place to go. Helen was furious when she learned Bonnie moved out because there would be no more of her rent money. Going forward Helen would be paying her monthly rent and supporting her freeloader son on her own.

It actually made sense for us to decide where we wanted to live sooner than later. Once we decided on a neighborhood, then we could look for an apartment and Bonnie could live there until we were married. Most importantly for us having our own apartment, it would give us the privacy back that we were both missing.

There was absolutely no privacy back at my apartment.

We now had so much to do and plan over the coming months and it promised to be a very busy summer for both of us. The one thing we knew for sure was that we would not be getting married in any church. Neither Bonnie nor I were religious and we had absolutely no intention of suddenly becoming religious. Seriously, after what I had been through over the past decade with my mother, could you blame me?

I was done with religion, all religions.

We had no intentions of joining a neighborhood parish just so we could use the church’s facilities on our wedding day. We knew many couples who had chosen that route and once they were married they never attended the church again. Although, I will say that getting married in a church and handing the minister an envelope with a hundred bucks cash inside was indeed tempting.

We would need to find an alternative and most likely we would be resorting to a more costly alternative for our wedding. We discovered that there were many nice private chapels available for weddings within the Toronto area. The one we both liked the most was the newly built Old Mill Inn wedding chapel on the Humber River.

The Old Mill Inn is near the site of Toronto's first sawmill built back in 1793. A series of other mills were also built on the site, but were later all destroyed by fire. The Old Mill Tea Garden restaurant was founded back in 1914 next to the ruins of an old grist mill on the Humber River. Over the ensuing decades, many banquet rooms were added and finally in the early 80's a wedding chapel was built. With the Old Mill Inn now having a wedding chapel it meant both weddings and receptions could now conveniently take place within the same location. Out of town wedding guests would also have the option of staying in one of the Inn’s luxurious guest rooms.

However, such one stop convenience would come at a price, a very steep price.

I was just starting my first complete season in the ice cream business so I knew it would be next to impossible to request holidays during the busy summer months. Since I was the new kid on the block, I knew taking time off during my first summer was out of the question. Bonnie too would also be very busy since Ontario Place was a summer attraction theme park. We both decided that a fall wedding in October would suit us perfectly. It would also be much easier for us to take a couple weeks’ holidays once both of our very busy summer jobs started to wind down.

The Old Mill was a very popular place for weddings so we made an appointment. Once we met with the event manager she explained if we were interested in booking one of the banquet rooms for our reception, we were out of luck. The Old Mill was booked solid every Saturday in October as well as every Saturday leading up to the Christmas holidays and the New Year. Even had we been able to book one of the banquet rooms, it would have been just too expensive to have our wedding reception at the Old Mill. There was absolutely no way Bonnie and I would have been able to afford it without going into debt. And there was absolutely no way we would even consider going into debt for our wedding.

We would get married at City Hall before that would happen.

However, she explained there were a few openings during October to book the wedding chapel for our ceremony if we were interested. We were definitely interested in booking the chapel and we left the Old Mill Inn that evening with our wedding date set. Bonnie and I would be married in the Old Mill wedding chapel on October 16th 1982 at 4 pm.

Just like renting ice, each wedding was booked by the hour. And just like renting ice included a flood, your actual hour long booking included intervals for your guests to arrive and leave. For the most part weddings at the Old Mill literally ran like clockwork with the actual ceremony taking just less than a half hour. Weddings were scheduled on the hour and if one wedding ran late, then all the weddings following would be running late for that day. We needed to have everything organized on our wedding day so there would be no surprises. It was of the utmost importance for all wedding parties and guests to be punctual.

On our day we would be the last wedding at 4 pm so hopefully the four or five weddings before us would have all their shit together.

We requested a non-denominational ceremony to be performed by the chapel’s marriage officiant who was also a United Church minister. It was mandatory that both Bonnie and I attend a couple marriage meetings with the minister before our big day. He wanted to discuss and make sure that we both understood the seriousness and sacredness of the marriage vows we would be making to each other.

Blah Blah Blah.

The chapel has no artificial lighting. Daylight from the large stained glass windows and real candlelight chandeliers gave the chapel a turn of the century feel. The small chapel could only seat just over a hundred people which would be more than enough to accommodate our potential guest list. The cost for our one hour, once in a lifetime wedding ceremony at the Old Mill was just under five hundred bucks. It would be the first of many expenses Bonnie and I would be incurring over the next few months.

With Bonnie and me paying for our wedding ourselves we both knew that there would be no outside financial help coming our way and neither of us expected it. The old tradition of the bride’s father paying for the wedding was something I absolutely never agreed with anyway and that was long before I even met Bonnie’s father.

My nan had mentioned that she wanted to honour my late father's wish and give us a thousand dollars cash. After I introduced Bonnie to my father and told him we were planning on getting married, he told my nan that he would be giving us a thousand dollars for a wedding gift. It was a very generous gesture by my grandmother. My gut instinct was to say no, but I also did not want to be rude or offend my nan. I was told my father died penniless with no assets to his name. A thousand bucks back in 1982 would have been an enormous sum of money for someone with no assets.

Bonnie and I graciously accepted her gift on behalf of my father and we used the money to buy our first bed, a king-size waterbed. Waterbeds were all the rage back in 1982. Although we now owned a waterbed we still had nowhere to put it, so our new bed would be sitting in the warehouse for a few weeks. The next item on our agenda would be to find our first apartment and a place where we could put our new waterbed.

Weston is a neighborhood and a former village in the city of Toronto just east of the Humber River. The streets are lined with older Victorian homes and mature trees many well over a hundred years old. The CCM Bicycle factory was founded in Weston on Lawrence Avenue back in 1899. Weston is also the home of Weston Arena, a vintage old hockey barn with one of the best ice rinks in the city. Both Bonnie and I agreed that Weston would be a good place to start our new life together.

A brand new modern thirty story apartment building had just been completed the previous year. The massive 420 unit building had indoor parking, a pool, a gym and a convenience store. We inquired about a one bedroom apartment on a higher floor. Although the rents were higher than most buildings in the area, the building's newness along with all the amenities convinced us to sign our first one year lease. Plus the fact it was right beside the Weston GO train station, making Bonnie’s daily commutes much easier and quicker.

Our first apartment had absolutely incredible breathtaking easterly views from our oversized 26th-floor balcony. The one bedroom unit was large and easily accommodated our new waterbed which we put to use right away. It was the perfect apartment for a young couple just starting out. Back at my apartment, everything was back to normal. I will always be grateful to my mother for allowing Bonnie to stay with us for the short period of time that she did. My mother provided Bonnie a place of refuge from the toxic living conditions that her own father had created.

Within a couple months we had everything booked for our wedding. We paid deposits on our flowers, photographer, DJ, limo and we also had our marriage license in hand. We booked our honeymoon at a Florida resort on the recommendation of another couple who had also gone there for their honeymoon. Our gold leaf invitations were printed and mailed to the hundred or so guests we were inviting to share our big day with us.

Both my mother and brother adamantly expressed how they would not be attending our wedding if it was held inside a church. It would go against both of their consciences they told me. Once again their holier than thou righteous attitudes would take precedent over everything else. Bonnie and I were not planning our wedding day around my mother and brother's consciences or religious beliefs.

Seriously, I could give a rat's ass if either of them showed up.

It was so nice to finally be in our own apartment and have our privacy back. For the first time in our relationship, it would now be just the two of us and only the two of us. We spent all our free time together during that summer. As the summer drew to a close we were spending every cent we earned on both our new apartment living expenses as well as our mounting wedding expenses. I had even taken on a Friday midnight shift to earn some extra cash.

Almost everyone we had invited said they were planning to attend. Even my mother and brother confirmed they would now be attending. The Old Mill chapel was not a church so attending our wedding would not be going against either of their conscience.

Fine, if you’re there you’re there and if you’re not, then that’s fine too.

Either way I really could care less.