Our story thus far: Alina Stanton and Charles Layton Crafton helped a friend, Garner Lewis, surprise his girlfriend Marissa Fairbanks with a wedding proposal.
Marissa sat stunned and happy, her plate cleaned of both dinner and desert.
"I can't believe you all surprised me like this!" she said over and over.
Charles, glad his part was finally done, chatted with Garner, while Alina and Marissa talked about the wedding.
"You must make my wedding dress!" Marissa said to Alina, her face glowing. "Your dresses are ever so beautiful, and I know you will do a wonderful job!"
Alina, ever a sucker for a compliment, agreed, and the two were soon deep in conversation over the possibilities.
Charles dreaded the phone call he knew was coming from his mother. He could already hear the disappointment in her voice. He had been too chicken to call her himself and tell her that Marissa was marrying another, but he knew she'd find out soon enough. And he also knew he'd then have to introduce her to Alina.
So he greeted his mother's breezy voice with a bit of shock.
"Charles! Why didn't you tell me? Marissa is getting married, and she tells me you've been dating Alina Stanton, that wonderful clothing designer, and that Alina is going to design her wedding dress! Christina and I couldn't be more happy! When do I get to meet Alina? Why, the real, live Alina Stanton and my son!"
She rambled on for a while, Charles interjecting in appropriate places, finally agreeing to introduce her to Alina.
And when the two finally met, Charles was pleasantly surprised to find that his mother loved Alina, adored Alina, and didn't have one bad thing to say about her.
And Alina, for her part, managed not to make too many remarks about Charles keeping the two of them apart.
The two couples spent quite a bit of time together, planning the wedding. Alina had thrown herself into creating the perfect wedding ensemble for Marissa, and Charles hardly saw her without also seeing swathes of fabric, reams of lace and buckets of seed pearls. Everyone at the office had a good laugh when, searching for his car keys, he emptied out his pockets only to find a small piece of the veil he had absentmindedly picked up.
Charles had had no idea how much went into a wedding -- from picking out the invitations to deciding who had to be invited (a list that seemed to grow with each passing day), to addressing the invitations, to picking out the church, the music, the priest, the program, to deciding on the menu for dinner, to deciding on seating for the guests, to designing the program, and picking the flowers... He wasn't sure how he got so involved in someone else's wedding, and also wasn't sure if he was up to planning his own.
His head reeled with all the details, a fact that he found quite amusing. As a lawyer, he had to be very careful and remember all kinds of details. And the details in his current cases gave him a headache -- he had more cases than he knew what to do with.
But finally, the months of preparing for the wedding were over. The Big Day arrived. He noted to himself as he adjusted his tuxedo jacket that he was probably as nervous as the bride and groom.
