“I don’t ask questions, I just give my clients what they want,” I laughed. “Anyway, they really wanted to do something unique with the theme and the groom came up with the idea to put on motion capture suits for their first dance and have the footage converted to create a livestream showing them as the characters. So when theguests looked at the screen with the feed, they saw the blue aliens dancing, not the bride and groom.”
“That’s … different.” Kristen was clearly trying to be diplomatic, but I could tell she had no clue where I was going with this.
I rushed to make the connection for her. “What if we try something like that with you? We could feed the footage of your grandfather into the CGI tech and broadcast you dancing with your grandfather. The camera crew would record it, so when you look back on the wedding video, you’ll see yourself dancing with your grandfather.”
She paused and stared off into space, processing the idea. “I wouldn’t have to wear one of those motion capture suits, right?”
“No, not at all, just the actor playing the role of your grandfather. Maybe we could even get a relative to wear it and dance with you?”
“I’m sorry,who’sgoing to be dancing with my wife?” Carter asked as he pulled Kristen to him.
I quickly explained the scenario to him.
“Eh, I don’t know, about that,” he said. “Those friggin’ outfits are weird and way too tight. I don’t want to look at the outline of some guy’s junk while he’s dancing with my wife.”
“Carter!” Kristen slapped him on the arm.
“I’mserious,” he whined. “Remember that zombie show you did where a bunch of the actors wore them? What was it called?Eat the Livingor something? You saw how tight those things are. It’d totally ruin the vibe we’re trying to have. You see that, right, babe?”
“But honey,” Kristen’s voice trembled. “I love the idea of including my grandfather. I think if we did it right it could be really special.”
I could tell she was really latching onto the plan, so I needed to intervene to help Carter understand it.
“What if we set you and the other person up in a side room and just broadcast the footage, instead of having you dancing with a green suited person in front of your guests? Could that work?”
They both considered it.
“Yeah, I could see that being okay,” Carter said. “So the green suit dude would never show up in the main ballroom, right?”
“Exactly,” I agreed. “The only thing your guests would see is the broadcast on the screen, and it would look like Kristen and her grandfather dancing. Kristen, what do you think?”
“I love it,” she sniffled. “Carter? Yes?”
He planted a kiss on the top of her head. “Of course yes. I want all of your dreams to come true. This is our wedding and after-party. So, there needs to be parts of both of us in it.”
Despite their speed-run engagement, the moment was pretty touching and heartfelt even if I did want to correct him. It was a reception to celebrate their wedding. Not an after-party. Baby steps.
“I promise you, it’s going to be a beautiful moment,” I said.
Of course, the concept added another layer to my workload, but it was worth it.
Exceeding expectations was what I did best.
18
EMILIA
“Okay folks, this is going to be nice and easy,” Dorian coached. “Now that you’ve become part of the Carten lore, the audience needs to understand more about your relationship. This is the big tell-all interview, where we get your backstory and the flavor of your relationship. My thinking is we’ll tease a flirtation between Drew and Kristen early on, to get peoplereallyinvested in the show and the possibility of a trainwreck, then we’ll reveal that the two of you are actually together. Make sense?”
I glanced at Drew and let out a slow exhale. I’d been okay being a part of the crowd as we’d filmed up until this point, but we were about to do a sit-down interrogation –interview- with my fake fiancé. We’d talked about it ahead of time including any potential complications, but I hadn’t felt any better about it. One of us was going to screw up. It felt inevitable.
“Got it,” Drew replied. “This should be fun. Our story is pretty damn spicy.”
He grabbed my hand and kissed it, which jarred me out of my stress-spiral.
“Yup, so fun,” I managed.
We were set up on a shady balcony, overlooking the beach. It was a beautiful backdrop for us to fumble and lie our way through our fake romance.
