Page 32 of Faking I Do
I squelched the panic rising from my gut. “Of course.”
“Deal.” Adeline shoved her hand out to shake. “But I’m not going back in that building until you catch Moses.”
I wrapped my hand around Adeline’s, wondering how in the world I was going to come up with a Cinderella carriage.
“I understand. They’ve got to get the floors redone anyway so the building won’t be accessible for a few weeks. By then we’ll have Moses contained and everything will be under control.” I hoped. I prayed. I tried to make a deal with God that all would go well. Not only my future, but the future of the whole town depended on it.
“As long as you’re here, do you want to talk about a few other details?”
“Sure. What do you have in mind?” I clasped my hands on the table in front of me. We only had about two months. Not a lot of time to plan for what would hopefully be our catalyst event.
“Just a few ideas.” Adeline reached into her bag and pulled out a thick binder. “I’ve been imagining this day since I was a little girl. It’s got to be perfect.”
I swallowed. Hard. I could picture Adeline as a little girl, orchestrating play weddings with her stuffed animals or dolls. That had never been my style. When I was little and thought about what it would be like to grow up and get married I always pictured me and Bodie, standing under a wooden arbor on the edge of a field of wildflowers. No need for china, crystal, or towering tiered cakes. I laughed to myself at the image of Bodie in a tux. I’d most likely pictured him as my groom since he was the only boy who’d been halfway nice to me as a girl. Didn’t have anything to do with the way he made my insides warm and gooey like a brownie fresh from the oven.
“Should we start with the invitations?” Adeline flipped the binder open.
“Haven’t you already made arrangements for those?” I gazed at the samples Adeline had stuffed into the bulging sheet protector.
“I’d planned on going through Phillips. But with them closing their doors, I need a plan B.”
I nodded. Plan B would be up to me. “Okay, let’s break this down.” The magazine article I’d read talked about establishing a theme for the wedding. After that, the theme would guide the rest of the decisions. “Have you thought about a theme?”
“Oooh, like we had for prom? A Night Under the Stars? Under the Sea?”
A groan escaped my lips. “Not exactly like that.” I racked my brain trying to remember the most popular themes they’d listed in the article. Granted, it was from over a decade ago, butthe wedding business couldn’t have changed that much. Love was love. Getting hitched meant the same thing no matter what year it was. “I mean more like a fairy-tale wedding, or a simple country get-together.”
“Fairy tale for sure. If we have Cinderella’s carriage we definitely have to do that. Although, Roman really likes to watch rugby. I want the wedding to reflect what he wants, too. Can we somehow work rugby into the equation?”
Cinderella meets the rugby player of her dreams? I screwed my lips into a frown. How would that go over? “Are you planning on a groom’s cake? We could definitely work that in somehow.”
“Yes.” Adeline clapped her hands together. “Let’s do a groom’s cake in the shape of a rugby field.”
“Um, okay.” It didn’t matter that I had no idea who would be making any kind of cakes, much less a rugby-themed groom’s cake. But I had one goal for this meeting today: keep Adeline as our client. No matter what ridiculous ideas she came up with, I would figure out a way to make them work. I had to.
“You have a dress, right?” I asked. Surely Adeline had already figured that piece out.
“Well, since I wasn’t planning on getting married until the fall, I haven’t made a final decision. My bridesmaids and I are planning on going to Dallas next weekend to take one last look.”
“Okay.” I nodded. “It can take several weeks if you need alterations so that should be priority number one.”
“Oh my gosh.” Adeline grabbed my hands. “You should come with us!”
I needed an excuse. A good excuse. Like now. “Um, I don’t think I can get the time off work. Helmut’s down a waitress right now, and?—”
“You just let me take care of that part. I’ll have a talk with him. It would mean a lot to me if you’d come. Now that we’vegot a theme and all, I want to make sure it’s all going to work together.”
“I don’t know.” I hemmed and hawed. I hadn’t seen this new development coming. I’d planned on revamping the event space and providing a new industry for my hometown. Becoming a wedding planner hadn’t factored into my goals at all. Not one tiny bit. Especially for Adeline, who’d made my high school life such a living hell.
“Are you sure you want me there? Isn’t this a time for you and your closest friends to get together?”
“It’s my wedding and you’re my wedding planner. You’ve got to coordinate everything so it all works together. I simply won’t take no for an answer. It’s settled. We’re going on Friday. We’ll leave early in the morning so we can fit in a few stops on Friday afternoon. This is going to be so much fun.”
“Yeah.” I nodded. “Fun.”
“I’ve got to get back. Thanks for stopping by. I really appreciate you settling my nerves.” She stood from the table and pushed her chair in. “You’ll let me know when they catch Moses, right?”
Moses . . . my mind had gone blank.
