Page 32 of Champagne Fizz

Or maybe it’s me who’s green.

Green with envy, because I’ll never be featured like this on the front of a wedding magazine. It’s time to put on my green polka-dot dress to match my mood. And I better make sure it’s the one with the long sleeves that doesn’t show off any of my skin (so good-looking accountants won’t drive me wild when I’m sitting next to them).

It takes connections to land an important wedding feature like the one Veronica is on. Connections, clout, and the biggest, gaudiest, most bling-bling weddings money can buy. Simon’s afraid I’m going to turn Ned and Olivia’s wedding into a 90s ruffle’s parade, but what they could get is a Veronica West blitzy-bling-extravaganza.

I flip open the magazine to the feature that shows off several of her biggest (and most ridiculous) events. I recognize the wedding with the outrageous floral tunnel that Veronica prides herself in creating. She puts it on all of her branding: business cards, posters, advertisements. There were ten thousand flowers pinned to that tunnel, along with hundreds of Hawaiian plumerias dangling like popcorn strings above the teeny-tiny couple who were dwarfed by the installation. Looking at the photo in the magazine, you can barely see the couple in the corner of the frame: an apt metaphor for a Veronica West wedding. I even remember the bride saying she had a headache from the floral smell. It overpowered everything else.

On the next page is the wedding with the cake hanging from a chandelier in the center of the room. It’s followed by the wedding with projections on silk drapes intended to make you feel like you’re flying through the jungles of the island. It’d be fun if the wedding was a Disneyland ride. Not so fun if your bride gets motion sickness and is trying to keep her wedding entree from ending up all over her gown.

Oh, and then there’s the infamous Dole family wedding—taking up a whole magazine spread. The décor included a thousand gold spray-painted pineapples sparkling like a treasure trove for the fruit-royalty of the Pacific. West should really be designing theme-park rides. It’s not that she isn’t creative. She is. It’s just that her creations would be a better fit for a Cirque de Soleil set than a wedding celebration. Veronica West isn’t about helping her clients keep up with the Joneses. She’s about blowing the Joneses clear out of the water with a thousand-watt confetti cannon.

A Veronica West wedding is aboutVeronica West.

Not her clients.

Which is obvious when you see thatshe’sthe one featured on the cover of a wedding magazine and not one of her couples. She’d never refer to one of her events as ‘Ned and Olivia’s wedding’. Oh no, it would be ‘That Epic Flaming Rooftop Wedding’, or some such nonsense. It would be all about the style and decoration, and nothing to do with the bride and groom.

Yet here she is on the cover of a prestigious magazine telling all of Hawaii that they haven’t had a dream wedding unless it’s big and flashy and loud. When did weddings become about glitz and power? Whatever happened to quaint, beautiful, heartfelt weddings in the backyard?

Maybe that makes me a sap.

Or perhaps it means I suck at business. Empires are not built in backyards, after all.

Yes, Sue Blade, I’m not living up to your take-no-prisoners awesomeness.

“Take accountability,” I grumble to myself, attempting to channel Blade’s mantra, “and do something about it.”

I toss the wedding magazine in the trash.

“You’re not Veronica West!” I assert. “Focus on what matters, and what matters to the couple. That’s your job. Be accountable.”

I look over to my laptop that’s sitting atop my turquoise desk (yes, I love pastel. So shoot me for being color-inclusive). The website for Voss Associates looks back at me. That’s Ned’s father’s firm. The firm Ned left only a few months ago to open his own practice, and as far as I can tell, that’s also the reason for all the family tension.

What’s the most important thing at a wedding (other than the bride and groom committing to their love)?

Family.

That means I need to convince Mr. and Mrs. Voss to come to this wedding.

They’ll regret it if they don’t attend. And he may not think so now, but Ned will regret it if he doesn’t invite his parents to his own wedding.

The question is how.

I’ve talked to Olivia, and she explained that Ned’s father pulled the rug out from under his son. It turns out there’s some deep-rooted family history having to do with Connor getting arrested and leaving their father’s firm. Are those issues that can be put aside for a once-in-a-lifetime event? Olivia says maybe—but it’s delicate.

What I need is a plan.

I can’t invite Ned’s parents to the wedding without his knowledge and expect everything to be hunky dory and perfect. I need an angle. No, not an angle, but a heartfelt reason. Something more thanyou’ll regret it later when whatever tiff this is blows over.

But what?

I click through my client files and scroll down to the box labeled Best Man contact information.

Connor.

Supposedly he’s the secret-sauce to keeping Arie in check, might he also be the key to mending this family fiasco?

Obviously, I have a new ally I need to enlist.

---