Less than one year to the wedding: karaoke at the bar where we met

I woke up yesterday, noticed the date, and said it out loud to the ceiling: one year to go!

07/17/27 is officially inside the countdown. Lucky sevens closing in.

The bit that will not die

I have been saying "one year, babe!" to Kerry, at every possible opportunity for the last 24 hours.

She's started rolling her eyes at me the exact same way I (lovingly) roll mine when she opens with "babe, I'm your fiancé!" We are, apparently, each other's problem.

Back to where it started

Yesterday, one year out to the day, we went back to Tracks in Brampton for karaoke. It is the bar where we met. Same room, same lighting that flatters no one, completely different chapter of the story.

Old friends showed up. New friends showed up. The place was packed and loud in the good way.

Kerry closed out the night with Moana's How Far I'll Go, which, one year from our wedding, hit a lot harder than she probably planned for. I sat at our table trying not to be a mess about it.

I did what I always do and pulled out John Michael Montgomery's Sold (The Grundy County Auction Incident). It is my ride-or-die karaoke pick and it did not miss. Half the bar was auctioning imaginary tractors with me by the second chorus.

The guest list, again

At some point during the night I looked around Tracks and realized: most of these people are getting an invite. And most of them are bringing someone. The number is creeping up again.

We already learned earlier this summer that plus-ones are a whole thing (shout-out to Kerry's coworkers for that reality check). Turns out a room full of your favorite people is a very effective way to remember why the guest list is the guest list.

My actual biggest challenge right now

Everyone assumes the venue was the hard part. The venue is locked in. The thing keeping me up is the food.

I want a wedding menu that pulls off two things at once: Caribbean flavors that honour island flavours (and the way we actually eat), and traditional wedding fare that we can easily point at and recognize. Jerk chicken, curry, roti, rice and peas, oxtail if the budget will love us. Sharing a menu with something familiar enough that nobody at table 4 is squinting at their plate.

The part that is genuinely hard: doing that fusion well without the per-plate cost going nuclear. Caterers in the GTA can absolutely do Caribbean. Caterers can absolutely do "traditional wedding." The overlap of "does both, does both well, and does not cost like a downtown steakhouse" is a much shorter list.

So this is a public ask. If you have hired, worked with, or eaten at a wedding pulled off by a caterer who does Caribbean-plus-traditional fusion in the GTA on a real budget, please send names. I will happily buy you a plate of jerk chicken as a finder's fee.

What's next

More vendor decisions. A first look at what a menu tasting week might look like. Probably another round of Kerry telling me to stop saying "less than one year, babe" at least once a day.

In one year, we get married. I still cannot quite believe I get to say that out loud.

- Shane