Vows

I couldn't think of a better way to kick off the 2013 wedding season than with the very, very Washington wedding of Josh Pollack and Leah Sullivan.

You normally don't think of the Staunton, Virginia area as bat mitzvah country. More like, rolling hills, horses and Civil War history. In fact, you don't normally associate bat mitzvahs with the outdoors, period. But that's not the way it always was.

Not every wedding needs to have 300 guests and take place in the largest hotel ballroom around. For Lisa and Mike, small was all.

Ashley Lucas and Andy Lacy might have had one of the more spectacular weddings on one of the more spectacular days in September, but after being given the gift of laughter from your parents, it's all gravy anyway.

Nothing, I've since learned, dates you faster than saying something like Holy Camoly. It falls into that category of ancient words and phrases like "aw, shucks," "egads," and "brouhaha." Like another of my favorites, the timeless "Geez Louise," using an archaic saying pegs you as someone older than, well, anyone who is within ten feet and laughing.

It was a few years past her wedding when Mariska Breland had an idea.

Meggan Crum and Scott Schneider were clearly thinking "not last week's wedding" when they chose a secluded, fog-encased beach in Tofino, British Columbia as the site of their nuptials. This place is so off the beaten path that it took almost seven hours to get there by car and ferry. And that's just from downtown Vancouver,