Page 86 of April

“Right,” Kyle said. “And I really only have my sister, my mom, dad, his wife, and kids to invite, so my list is pretty short. Everyone else I would invite lives here. I was thinking about asking Myra to come. She’s the contractor who’s been redoing the house. Her work is amazing, and she’s building our dream house for us, but we’ve also become friends.”

“That’s a good idea,” Melinda agreed.

“What if we have a ceremony in one of the restaurants with a courtyard? That would keep the guest list small how we want,” Linden suggested. “I’ve done a couple of weddings like that. You can get anywhere between twenty to over a hundred people in one of those courtyards if you’re creative with the balconies.”

“We could,” Melinda said. “But maybe we just use our backyard garden. Ky and I have been talking about it, and it’s having some work done now on the flowers, but it will be ready in time.”

“It’s outside,” Linden pointed out. “And in a restaurant courtyard, you’d have a lot more shade and protection from the heat and humidity.”

“I know, but that garden is special to us,” Melinda replied, looking over at Kyle. “We’re sentimental, I guess.”

“Well, that makes my life a whole lot easier, so if it’s what you want, I’m in,” Linden said. “Would you want the reception there, too? If so, that would create a few logistic things we’d have to work through. You’d probably have all your guests in the house for at least an hour while we tear down the stuff from the ceremony and it’s turned into the reception space since the yard isn’t big enough to have two setups at the same time.”

“That’s the part where I think we can get creative,” Kyle replied. “Mel has talked to Pat O’Brien’s.”

“She has?” Linden asked.

“Yes. She knows everyone in this town,” Kyle joked.

Melinda just shook her head at her fiancée and said, “I was thinking we could close them down for the afternoon and evening. We’d have their courtyard, and they do receptions like this all the time.”

“Okay. Well, I can reach out to finalize all the arrangements unless you’ve already signed the paperwork,” Linden said, teasing her a little.

“No.” Melinda laughed. “And I have this idea of each table having a specific New Orleans item on it or something. Maybe one table has shot glasses with hurricanes. One had beignets. Another could have something to do with voodoo or tarot; I don’t know. Just that it would be all about New Orleans.”

“I thought you wanted your wedding to be all aboutyou,” Linden said, making a note.

“I want it to be special forus, and this would make it special,” Melinda said.

“I agree,” Kyle added. “I think it would be pretty cool. People could walk around and try a little of everything. There could be dancing inside, too, if they want, but it would give everyone something to do and experience, and then, we can go home early and just be the two of us.” She smiled over at Melinda.

“Yeah. And Pat O’s would be able to open up for the regular late-night crowd, so it would be cheaper for us, too.”

“Okay. Well, we can fit a lot of tables back there, depending on how you want them set up. Let me reach out to them and see how they’d recommend we do this, and we can get a contract put together and sent to you two to review.”

Linden wrote down a note to call her contact at Pat O’Brien’s.

“Now what?” Kyle asked. “Do we start trying to pick out cakes?”

“Well, we have venues and colors and a theme for the reception, even, so there are some things I need to work out on my end first before we get much further, but if you want, I can start setting up tastings,” Linden replied. “Did you want the cake to go with the New Orleans theme or be more traditional?”

“Oh. Can we do both?” Melinda asked. “I’m thinking we could do a king cake.”

“And whoever gets the baby has to host the next wedding?” Linden asked. “Oh, that could be cool. It could be like the bouquet toss, but instead of doing that, you have all the single ladies cut the cake, and the one that gets the baby–”

“Gets married next. Yeah. Cool, huh?” Melinda asked.

“I still don’t understand this tradition,” Kyle said.

“You’re not from here, babe,” Melinda replied, patting Kyle’s hand.

The king cake was a New Orleans tradition that involved a small plastic baby and a party. The cake was baked with a tinyplastic baby hidden inside, and the person who got the slice with the baby in it had to host the next party. In this case, it would be something totally New Orleans, fitting the theme of the event, and Linden hadn’t ever done this before for a wedding, so it would be something new for her as well.

“I love it,” she said. “I have someone who makes kick-ass king cakes. I can ask them.”

“That would be great,” Melinda replied. “And I’d like a regular cake, too. Something small, though. Just a couple of tiers.”

“Okay. I’ll get working on that and arrange the tastings,” she said as she wrote down everything they’d decided on.

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