The Wedding Emergency

Chapter 1: The Problem No One Planned For

The venue smelled like white roses and quiet panic.

Luke noticed both the moment he stepped through the double doors of Harrington Hall, the floral arrangements everywhere, fat and perfect and expensive, and underneath them the particular tension of people who had planned something meticulously and were now watching it fray at the edges. A woman in a headset was speaking rapidly into her phone near the coat check. Two of his cousins were arguing in hushed, urgent voices about table runners. Somewhere behind a partition, someone was crying, though whether from emotion or stress, Luke couldn’t tell.

He found a spot near the window, out of the way, and checked his watch. Eleven forty. The ceremony was at two. He had approximately two hours and twenty minutes to stand around looking useful without actually being assigned to anything, which was exactly the way he liked it.

Luke was good at weddings in the way that quiet, practical people are good at weddings: he showed up on time, he didn’t make speeches unless asked, and he had learned years ago that the best place to be during pre-ceremony chaos was slightly to the left of it. His cousin Rosie was the one getting married. He liked Rosie. He liked her fiancé, Dom, well enough. He had bought them a good gift, he had ironed his shirt, and he was fully prepared to do his duty and then find somewhere comfortable to sit during the reception.

What he was not prepared for was his Aunt Carol speed-walking towards him with an expression he associated with natural disasters.

“Luke.” She grabbed his arm without breaking stride, pulling him sideways. “Good. You’re here. I need you to walk with me.”

“Good morning to you too.”

“Amanda has food poisoning.”

He blinked. “Amanda as in...”

“As in the bridesmaid, yes. Rosie’s university friend, the one who flew in from Edinburgh, the one who has been in every single planning document for the last eight months.” Carol’s voice was crisp and efficient. She was not a woman who wasted time on hysteria when she could spend it solving things. “She called from the hotel twenty minutes ago. She’s not coming.”

“That’s awful, I hope she’s...”

“She’ll be fine. That’s not the problem.” Carol stopped walking and turned to face him. They were in a small corridor off the main hall, flanked by more roses. “The problem is symmetry. Four groomsmen, four bridesmaids. Now we have three. You know how Rosie is about the photos.”

He did know. He’d grown up with Rosie. She had spent six months choosing the exact shade of sage green for the bridesmaid dresses.

“Right,” he said slowly, sensing something he did not yet want to name. “So you need to find someone...”

“We have found someone.”

The pause stretched out.

“Carol.”

“You’re tall,” she said, in a tone that suggested this was the beginning of a very logical argument. “You’re slim. Amanda’s dress is a twelve...”

“No.”

“...and Maria thinks it could work with the right alterations...”

“Absolutely not.”

“Luke.” She looked at him steadily. “It’s Rosie’s wedding day.”

He opened his mouth. He closed it. From somewhere deeper in the building, he could hear his cousin’s voice, not crying any more, but talking fast, a little brittle at the edges, the way Rosie talked when she was holding herself together through sheer force of personality. The voice of someone trying very hard not to let this become the thing she remembered about her own wedding.

He looked back at Carol.

“Just standing in, right?” he said. “Like, I stand in the background. Hold some flowers. Done.”

“In a supporting capacity, yes.”

“No dress, obviously...”

“Well...”

“Carol.”

She pressed her lips together. “The photos need to be consistent. If you’re in the bridal party, then you’re in the bridal party.”

“That’s not an answer to what I just said.”

“It is, actually. Just not the one you wanted.”

He stared at her. She looked back at him with the patient, unyielding expression of a woman who had planned three children’s weddings and was not about to be derailed by one reluctant nephew.

“Just the ceremony,” he said, trying again. “I stand in line, I walk down, it’s twenty minutes, done. I don’t have to do the whole... the whole morning, the getting ready...”

“It’s already eleven forty-five.”

“Right, but...”

“The photographer arrives in thirty minutes for the bridal party prep shots.”

He rubbed the back of his neck. “Makeup,” he said suddenly, seizing on it. “I’m not doing makeup. That’s where I draw the line. I will wear... whatever, if I absolutely have to, but not...”

“Jess is very good. Very natural. You’d barely notice.”

“I would notice, Carol, because it would be on my face.”

“Luke.” Her voice dropped, lost its logistics-coordinator edge, became something closer to honest. “Rosie is in there trying not to cry because she doesn’t want to ruin her makeup, and she’s convinced herself this is a sign, because you know how she gets, and what she actually needs right now is for someone she trusts to walk through that door and tell her it’s going to be fine.” A pause. “I thought that person might be you.”

The corridor was quiet. Faintly, the sound of Rosie’s voice again, steadier now, but still that slight brittleness underneath.

Luke looked down at his very nicely ironed shirt.

“I hate you,” he said, without any heat.

Carol patted his arm. “Full participation. Dress, photos, entrance, the lot. I’ll explain on the way.” She was already moving. “Rosie’s in the bridal suite, third floor. Maria has the dress.”

He stood there for a moment longer than he needed to.

Dress. Photos. Entrance. The lot.

Then, because he was practical, and because Rosie was trying not to cry, and because, somewhere underneath the absurdity of it, he found he couldn’t quite summon a good enough reason to say no, he followed his aunt up the stairs.