"I'm sorry, I don't think that's gonna work for us."
Her mouth dropped open, the sticky sweet voice coming from somewhere over her head without warning and without discussion.
"I'm hot just thinking about an outdoor ceremony in July. But thank you for taking the time to meet with us."
"What was that?!" she'd hissed as they crossed the parking lot. "July might be the best we can do!"
Khash looked down dubiously. "Lurielle don't even pretend your back's not itchin' at the thought of standing under that blazing sun. I've been to weddings before. I know nothing starts on time, no matter how well prepared you are, darlin'. You'll come out with your flowers and your ribbons, looking as pretty as a picture, and I'll already be a puddle in the grass. No, ma'am. If we’re waiting until July, we can wait until September."
At the florist, later that same week, he gripped her hand, squeezing minutely, telegraphing his disapproval. They hadbarely crossed the threshold of the door on their way out before he began clucking his tongue.
"Bluebell, do I look like some anxious teenager taking you to the elder's promenade? My granddaddy didn’t raise up no skinflint. I've seen bouquets at the supermarket that looked nicer than that."
As they drove home, she comprehended the uphill battle she was in for.
Khash had found fault everywhere they went. Boutiques in Bridgeton, a tiny shop in Greenbridge Glen — no one was safe from his pie in the sky expectations. For someone who had no opinions on the sort of ceremony she wanted, he suddenly had all the opinions in the world about particular businesses, the selection they had on hand, and what sort of display they would be able to do. It might have been easier if she’d been able to leave him home — which she might have done, had Ris or Silva been available a single time she’d called. Instead, he was there — willing, eager, and sabotaging her entire plan for a small, simple affair.
It wasn't completely his fault. She was forced to concede that he was not the only one who had seemingly become an expert wedding planner overnight. Everywhere they went, businesses that had previously advertised reptilian first molt ceremonies and lunar celebrations for the mothfolk were now certified wedding authorities, specializing in the institution of matrimony, no longer honoring the moderate and reasonable prices featured in their existing catalog.
All she wanted to do was plan something small, and between her fiancé and the business owners, Lurielle felt thwarted at every turn.
She didn't have time to let her frustration bubble over. Before they'd even had a chance to flip through the first book, the back doors came bursting open. It was a different Naga, harriedand frazzled, younger than the elderly gentleman who'd greeted them, but clearly a relation.
"Hi, I'm so sorry. There's been a mistake."
Lurielle's eyes widened slightly. "We – we were just looking at the wedding —"
"My dad should have called me out, I'msosorry. He doesn’t remember — He said you're interested in doing a wedding? Before I even put your consultation on the books, we need to discuss dates. My schedule is stretched paper-thin right now."
Her heart began to sink, already knowing where this was going. We need to just wait until next fall.It’ll be fine. He’s going to have to stop eating red meat and take up jogging, but it’ll be fine.
"We were hoping for sometime this spring," Khash said, glancing at Lurielle, receiving her nod. "Spring or early summer. No later than June."
When the snake man pulled a face, her heart sank. They were already having a hard time finding a venue. For as much as Khash was unimpressed with the selection and quality of the businesses they had visited in Bridgeton and Greenbridge Glen, even traveling as far as Starling Heights one afternoon, the situation here at home was even more fraught.
Lurielle would have preferred doing everything right there in town. Her dress, the venue, the florist. Their wedding jewelry, the music, everything. Cambric Creek boasted businesses that could have done it all. But every shop had the same story upon learning she was hoping for a spring wedding.
You're not going to cry. You arenotgoing to start crying in the middle of this flower shop. There will be a whole field of dandelions next to the sex toy shop come the first week of May. You can jump out of the car and pick a bunch of those and it will be fine. Everyone likes yellow.
"Yeah, that's what I was afraid of. I have the Hemming wedding. I'm just not sure if I'm going to be able to take on anything else."
Of course.Sometimes, Lurielle thought, it was a wonder how she had survived her adolescence as cleanly as she'd been able to. She clearly didn't pay attention to a single thing beyond the tip of her pushed-in nose. Otherwise, before she'd got it into her head that she and Khash desperately needed to get married that spring, she might have paid attention to the fact that one of the Cambric Creek elite was to be wed right around the general time frame that she was thinking for her own ceremony, might have considered what that meant, and may have saved herself the frustration the past month had wrought.
Grayson Hemming and his massive spectacle of a wedding had become the bane of her entire existence.
“I heard they’re doing the service right before the full moon! I can’t tell if that’s romantic or if they’re begging for a lawsuit.”
She'd listened to a pair of lizard folk at the coffee shop, the women laughing over the notion of a full moon adjacent wedding ending in bloodshed, apparently.
"How many carats was the ring?"
That had been the day she'd stopped into Petite Trésor, looking with trepidation at the Orcish wrist cuffs in their case. Delicate tennis bracelets and charms, worn on nice nights out for a few hours at most — she could handle easily. Anything more than that, though . . . She’d been making a point of wearing her smartwatch every day, trying to train herself out of feeling chafed, reminding herself that she was going to be stuck with something heavier and permanent very soon.
The woman behind the counter had laughed at the troll's question, another customer like her, Lurielle assumed.
"Let's put it this way, she's gonna need to have a very strong wrist."
A life-long resident from the oldest, most powerful family in town, the werewolf’s upcoming vows had flung the entire town into a frenzy, eating up every inch of time, space, and resources Cambric Creek and the business district his father had single-handedly created, could hope to provide.
