Run-In #1: “How We First Met”
The Michael & Sunny Kesler Wedding
Hell’s Kitchen, New York
It took me five years and thirty weddings to finally accept that the phrase, “Don’t worry about anything,” didn’t work on brides.
Like,ever.
Especially when it was storming on the big day and the clouds were dropping sheets of nonstop rain.
But it was even worse when the bride was a Type-A woman like Sunny Kesler, whose attention to detail made me question my sanity.
Before hiring a shoe cleaner for the guests so that there would be no dirt marks on the dance floor, she wanted to listen to the DJ’s full set three times and mark exactly where he could speak.
Oh, and she picked thirty items for her guest gift bags, and she wanted the barcodes on the German chocolate bars to stand in the same direction.
I wouldn’t have had an issue with any of those things—it was her wedding after all—but my patience was wearing thin after answering fifty of her calls this morning.
I leaned back in the Uber, mentally calculating how many miles until my next stop.
Bzzzz! Bzzzz! Bzzzz!
As if on cue, my phone sounded with a call from Sunny.
Ugh.
“Yes, Mrs. Kesler?” I answered.
“I’m not a ‘Mrs.’ yet,” she huffed. “You’re trying to jinx my wedding, aren’t you?”
“Why would I want to—” I bit my tongue. “No, Sunny. I’m not trying to jinx your wedding.”
“I think the weather is, though,” she said. “It’s been clear all week and it just decided to storm on my big day? Why didn’t you check the forecast?”
I did…“They’re only scattered storms.” I tried to keep my voice calm. “They should clear up in time for the ceremony.”
“Won’t this affect me and Michael getting pictures on the dock of the Hudson River?”
“No, but if it’s drizzling, I booked a nearby panoramic window to use as a backup.”
“I’ve asked room service to bring me another warm robe and they haven’t yet,” she said. “I thought the Four Seasons was a five-star hotel.”
“It is.” I sent a text to the guest services manager. “I’ll make sure you have it within the next three minutes. In the meantime, Sunny, I assure you that everything will be perfect today. Don’t worry about anything.”
“Excuse me?”
Oh my god, I did it again…
“Did you just tell me, the bride, not to worry?” She didn’t give me a chance to answer. “Did those words actually drop from your mouth?”
I sighed.
“This is the biggest day of my life, and I’ve spent two years working with you on the details and...”
I tossed my phone into my purse, letting her rant to my notebooks.
I didn’t need her to remind me about just how long we’d been working together; I had a countdown for the moment she and the groom said “I do,” so I could be done with her.
