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Wedding Vows
My brother saluted,and the door to the ‘bridal room,’ as it was called, closed behind him. I sat down on a padded bench since my big, poofy dress couldn’t fit in a regular chair, and looked around the pink room, decorated in someone’s idea of bridal chic, with its gilt-framed mirrors and artificial flowers in vases of fake water. I took a few deep breaths.
The truth was, I had concerns about what I was about to do. I’d not told anyone, and for the longest time wouldn’t even allow myself to think about it. But today, of all days, my uncertainties rudely bubbled to the forefront of my thoughts, and weren’t in the mood to be stuffed back down, where I usually kept them.
My mother hadn’t been the only one eager to see me married. Daniel himself had wasted no time pouncing on me when he realized I was the first sane woman he’d met in years, who could also pay her own bills. I guessed he’d been on a really bad dating streak, and he fell head over heels with me in no time, really just a few months after we’d met.
He was a great guy. He was. I had no issue with him at all. He was nice enough looking, on his way up in the law firm where he was a junior associate, and had been assured his partnership with them was right around the corner. He loved taking me to work events and showing me off, incorporating me into his professional world just like his personal one. It was flattering, if not a little uncomfortable at times. He nearly always introduced me to new people along with mentioning where I’d gone to college and that my own career was on track to earn me a nice high income. Between the two of us, as he liked to say, we’d soon be living the high life as the envy of everyone we knew.
I didn’t mind that we had a good future ahead of us, but I didn’t see the need to broadcast it to the world.
Daniel did, though. Chalking it up to a little insecurity he had from competing with his older, more established brothers, I let it slide.
The real thing that bothered me, however, which Mom told me would iron itself out after we’d gotten married and had fallen into a routine, was that we didn’t spend a whole lot of time together. We didn’t live together yet, with him in his apartment downtown and me out by the university in the same apartment I’d had since college. That, coupled with his crazy long hours meant we had scheduled ‘date nights,’ which seemed very weird if you asked me. Weren’t those for people who’d been together forever and who were totally bored with each other?
But when he pulled that ring out of his pocket, a nice-sized, almost-perfect pear-cut diamond one of his law firm colleagues had helped him choose, I said yes. I was going to be the best wife and partner I could, and would learn all the things about him I didn’t already know. In spite of his quirks, he’d surely be a great husband right back.
Seth poked his head back into the bridal room, shaking me from my thoughts.
“Hey,” I said, glad to be interrupted.
“Just checking in. You good?” he asked.
I smiled, flattered I was on his mind. “Yes. Thank you for asking.”
“Say, what are you guys doing for vows?” he asked curiously. “Traditional church stuff, or did you write your own?”
Vows.Shit.
“Oh god,” I groaned, slapping my forehead.
Everyone said that when you were planning a wedding, there was always one thing that went wrong. One thing you forgot, one thing that didn’t arrive on time, one person who didn’t behave themselves.
But I’d never expected something to go wrong before I’d even walked down the aisle.
Where were my damn vows?
I’d tried to memorize them. I really had. I’d spent hours in my living room, going over them as hard as an actress prepping for a big scene. And if push came to shove, I could probably recite fifty percent of them and ad lib the rest.
But ad libbing wouldn’t do, which was the whole damn point of having them neatly typed on a little slip of paper I could discreetly pull out when the ceremony called for it. I was wound too tightly at the moment to trust myself to remember much of anything except my name.
I dashed over to my little wedding handbag, a gift from my grandmother, and dumped it upside down. Out fell a new Chanel lipstick, my cell phone, and a tiny bit of cash I’d thrown in at the last minute for some silly ‘just in case’ scenario.
But the little slip of paper containing my vows, which I’d spent hours agonizing over?
Nowhere to be seen.
Seth started looking around the room, under and behind things, coming up empty just like I had.
“Shit, shit, shit.” I cried, running in circles until I remembered something. “Wait, Daniel has copies!”
“Where is he?” Seth asked. “I’ll go get them for you.”
“No. No, let me. I want to read them over as I walk, anyway. Look, I know it’s supposed to be bad luck, but if he sees me ahead of time in my dress, so be it. Superstitions are silly, anyway.”
Seth looked like he was about to argue but closed his mouth. “Okay. I’ll go see where we are with the guests. Most people must be here by now. It’s only ten minutes to lift off. You’re good, then?”
