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Tables, draped in lavender cloths with peach runners, held arrangements where the flowers sparkled with fairy lights. Chairs, also draped, had nosegays tucked into their back ties.
An arbor smothered in flowers stood at the end of a white runner. To its far left a string quartet would play before the ceremony, and would continue as the bride’s attendants—eight of them, plus flower girl and ring bearer—made their procession.
They’d provide selected—by the bride—music for portions of the ceremony and throughout the dinner service.
Groomsmen would begin to escort guests to their assigned tables, staff would take their drink orders—limited before the ceremony to the champagne at the table, one of the signature cocktails, or nonalcoholic choice. Bartenders would fill the orders until seven—sharp—when the groom and his best man entered by the side ballroom doors.
Any guests arriving after the seven o’clock mark would wait outside the ballroom until the bride and her father reached the arbor.
No exceptions, by order of the bride.
“The ceremony runs fifteen minutes,” Drea continued. “When the bride and groom are played out, guests are free to order drinks from the table, go to the bars while staff removes the arbor, the runner. The bulk of the photos are done, and the photographer and videographer will work the ceremony, but there will be another fifteen to thirty minutes of post-ceremony photos. The bride wants dinner service to begin at seven-thirty with the salad course. Then they’ll announce the wedding party, the parents of the groom, of the bride, then the happy couple. Once they’re seated, dinner service continues, and the bars are again open.
“At eight-thirty, the curtain comes down, and the band begins.”
She ran through the rituals and their timing—first dance, mother-son, father-daughter, cake cutting, bouquet tossing.
At six-thirty, Morgan took her station and guests began to come in.
They suited the room in their black tie and sleek gowns. She thought the oohs and aahs as they took in the ballroom well deserved.
Then she got busy mixing peach and lavender drinks and pouring sparkling water.
She didn’t know whether to credit the demanding bride or Drea, but it all ran smooth when at the dot of seven the music changed. The attendants, in their lavender gowns with crowns of peach rosebuds on their heads, proceeded down the runner.
The ring bearer and flower girl earned every smile—he in his tiny tux and lavender waistcoat, she in her frothy peach dress.
Then the dramatic pause before the bride, on the arm of her father, stepped into the doorway.
Morgan barely smothered an ooh of her own.
She wore a fairy princess gown, snow-white, miles of skirt, and a snug, strapless bodice that sparkled as it caught the light. Her hair, raven black, swept up and back with a few artistically, perfectly loosened strands to curl around her face.
She, too, wore a crown of flowers, more elaborate than her attendants’ and with a veil trailing like a gossamer cloud down her back.
She may have been hell to work with, Morgan thought, but the way she looked at the man waiting under the arbor, the way he looked at her, said “love.”
Drea slipped in, sidled over to Morgan. She said quietly, “Whew.”
“It’s stunning, everything is just stunning.”
“That’s what she wanted. And this?” She nodded toward where the bride and groom exchanged vows. “It’s the first time I’ve seen her relaxed and happy in weeks.”
She slipped out again.
Morgan watched the kiss, watched how the groom lifted his bride’s hand to his lips when they turned to face their guests.
She wondered how it felt to look like a princess.
But more, she wondered how it felt to have someone look at you the way the groom looked at the bride. As if everything he’d ever wanted, ever would want, lived right there in her eyes.
Then they swept down the runner and 1out, and she got busy fast.
The band knocked it out. Playing to an audience of three generations, they wove in some old standards, pushed covers of current hits, sprinkled in plenty of classic rock. The dance floor stayed packed, clearing only for the rituals like the cutting of the massive four-tiered wedding cake.
By midnight, Morgan estimated about half the guests had said their goodbyes. But the other half kept right on partying.
It didn’t surprise Morgan when she got word the father of the bride agreed to an hour’s extension.
