The Toronto Fringe Festival is back in all its beautiful, messy, enthusiastic creative energy. What a joy! Here’s the first of two Fringe reviews for shows seen within a 24-hour window. We’re starting off with Maggie Chun’s First Love and Last Wedding.

I’ve got a friend who introduced himself to me by cheerfully asking “So, what small Ontario town are you from?” The fact that I am not from a small Ontario town and did in fact grow up in Toronto makes me an anomaly, he claims. Toronto is full of people from small towns looking for something different. Not necessarily better, he says - just different.

Maggie Chun doesn’t think she’s looking for different. It’s the morning of her wedding day in tiny Windser, Ontario (yes Windser with an e). Her dress is lovely, her best friend/wedding planner has every detail down to the cherubs sculpted from butter on lock, her intended has a bright career ahead of him working in the combination mayor’s office and deli. And yet (there’s always a yet), when her childhood crush walks through the hotel lobby dressed in a Wes Anderson-esque pink bellhop’s uniform, different starts to look a lot more interesting.