Flowers and Financiers by Alina Jacobs
1
Amy
“Why did I agree to get married at a wedding festival?” I complained to Ivy.
“Festivals are fun,” she reminded me. “You like festivals, remember? You always used to go back to Harrogate for the festivals.”
“Yes, but now that I live there full-time, it is a lot,” I admitted.
“Besides, you told us Sebastian wanted to have all your friends and family at the wedding,” Elsie added.
“And you guys are both from a very in-your-business small town,” Brea added. “Unless you eloped to a small island, your wedding was always going to be insane. And if you did elope, people in town would give you the cold-shoulder treatment, and you would probably never hear the end of it. On your gravestones, it would say, ‘Ran off, eloped, and betrayed the town.’”
“It will be fun,” Sophie cajoled me. “We’re getting so much buzz with the wedding festivals. Plus, there’s the whole reality TV show surrounding it.”
Another clue that thisnew iteration of the wedding festival has gotten way out of hand.
“You can’t skip the wedding. Think of those of us who do not have a rich man to buy us everything we want and also provide amazing sex,” Sophie pleaded. “Let me live vicariously through you. All I have is cake in my life. Speaking of, we are going to have your favorite! Seven-layer chocolate bliss cake with raspberry, caramel, and amaretto fillings.”
“Yum,” I said, sitting up on the couch.
“Speaking of overindulging in cake, I signed up for the bridezilla run!” Brea exclaimed, clapping. “We’re going to wear super-glam makeup, and I sewed running outfits for us!”
She rummaged in her big sewing bag and pulled out a set of matching white spandex outfits.
My jaw dropped.
“Ooh,” Ivy said, wincing. “Too bad you only have two of them. I guess I’ll have to cheer you guys on from the sidelines.”
“Brea,” I said. Usually, my friend designed unique, award-winning wedding dresses. Every once in a while, though, she had an out-of-this-world bad idea.
These spandex wedding running outfits? Bad idea.
“It’s going to be so much fun!” she squealed.
“Brea, if we were going to be in a run, we needed to start training earlier! All I’ve been doing is stress-eating and stress-drinking.”
“There’s champagne at the run.” Brea scoffed. “No one is expecting anyone to seriously run the whole 5K.”
“It’s a 5K?” I shrieked.
“You walk that much using the subway.”
“And I just about die every time,” I reminded her. “Now I’m going to have to do all of that in front of potential clients, fellow townspeople, and all the reality TV show cameras?”
“You’ll be great,” Brea insisted. “We’ll run it together. We can pregame beforehand!”
* * *
I triedto pep-talk myself into feeling in the wedding spirit as I took the train back to Harrogate and back to Sebastian’s estate house. I had been spending the majority of my time in the small town and traveling into Manhattan for meetings and wedding conferences during the week. It was nice to spend more time in my hometown. I was working on expanding the greenhouses, and my grandfather, Ernest, seemed happier that I was around more.
The additional time in Harrogate also meant that I had way more contact with the local characters.
“Top of the morning!” Ida said cheerfully.
The workers were decorating the train station for the wedding festival. People had already started arriving, as the bed-and-breakfasts in town had mandated a three-night-stay minimum.
Many people were also carrying miniature dachshunds, for some reason.
“I had this killer idea,” Ida continued, talking a mile a minute. “We at the festival committee wanted to surprise you.”
My eye started twitching. It had been doing that a lot lately.
“We’re hosting a dog run—to be more specific, a wiener dog run—today!” Ida said, extending her arms.
“Why?” I asked, hoping I didn’t sound hysterical. “Don’t we have enough going on?”
“We have to keep the tourists amused,” Ida said, grabbing me by the arm and hauling me toward the town square. “It’s all wiener themed. You know, like a town-wide bachelorette party. Weiner dogs, wiener hotdogs, wiener dildos.”
“Lord, help us.”
“Now this is partly your own doing, missy. I wanted to have a nice family-friendly event where we burned the bridal effigies. However, someone was concerned about burning down the gazebo. Even though she had promised we were supposed to burn them on Halloween.”
“Harrogate could not afford the extra overtime for the fire department,” I said. Now both eyes were twitching. I did not want to have that argument again. I had hoped the effigies would disappear or be forgotten, but unfortunately, they had their own Facebook group.
“Fine, but you can’t blame us. We had to do something to keep it interesting!”
