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“There you are,” she said sleepily as I sat down next to her.
“Here I am,” I said.
She curled into my chest, and we leaned back in the recliner of the couch.
“I had a wonderful night,” she said. “Happy New Year.”
“I did too,” I said. “Happy New Year, baby.”
“Do you want to go on to bed?” she asked.
“No, we can stay here for a little bit,” I said. “I just want to enjoy this moment with you.”
“Okay,” she said. “Just remember we have a lot more moments to come.”
“Yes, we do,” I said, grinning to myself. “Yes, we do.”
29
CARMELA
As soon as we announced our engagement to everyone, the questions started coming. Everyone wanted to know when the wedding was, where we were going to have it, and what kinds of plans we had for it. Mark and I joked that they seemed even more invested in the whole thing than we did, considering we were taking much the same approach to our engagement that we did to our baby being born and just spending some time relishing the feeling of being engaged.
But all the questions seemed to get to Mark, and the morning after our announcement, he told me we could have as long an engagement as I wanted. He wanted me to have the wedding of my dreams and understood that might take time to plan. As far as he was concerned, he would marry me that day. He just wanted to be able to call me his wife. But wanted me to have everything I'd ever imagined.
That was all I needed to hear. I immediately told him I didn't want to wait long. It didn't matter to me if I got all the details I'd ever envisioned. I could barely even remember anything I planned before I fell in love with Mark. The truth was, I already knew he was everything to me. I'd known that for a long time, and I was never going to let go of that feeling.
The only thing that would make it the wedding of my dreams was to marry him. It didn't matter what the rest of the celebration looked like. Mark seemed almost hesitant to believe me when I said that, thinking I was just saying it to agree with him. But I reassured him that the thing that was important to me was having him waiting for me at the end of the aisle, not anything else.
It helped matters that I genuinely never wanted anything huge and splashy. While other girls were dreaming of weddings with dripping crystal chandeliers, lavish multi-course meals, and several different venues and dresses, my tastes had always run simpler. For me, it wasn't about how elaborate the wedding was, or how much we impressed our guests. The day was about joining us together and the promises we would make to one another in front of everyone we loved.
A simple, beautiful ceremony and fun reception was perfect, and I knew exactly where I wanted it to be. It was just a matter of finding the right vendors and pulling everything together. It only took a few months, and in the soft warmth of an April afternoon, I stood in one of the upper bedrooms of the ranch house looking into a full-length mirror as I did my makeup.
Originally, I’d planned on having a makeup artist come and do my makeup for me, but there were only a couple in town, and they were heavily booked with proms and senior portraits during the spring. Waiting another month until one of them was available just wasn't worth it for me. I wanted to look beautiful for Mark on our wedding day, but I reminded myself I'd done my own makeup every time he'd seen me throughout our whole relationship, real and fake, and he'd always liked what he'd seen.
I didn't want to look like a different person at the altar, just a special version of myself. So, I was doing it myself. I glanced over at the clock on the bedside table and saw I was quickly running out of time. I expected any second for Camden to come knocking on the door to tell me to hurry.
In keeping with our plans for a small, simple ceremony, Mark and I had decided to forgo long lines of bridesmaids and groomsmen on either side of us in favor of a single witness each. Camden was playing two roles, acting as Mark's witness and also walking me down the aisle. Neither one of them particularly appreciated my lawyer joke that it was a conflict of interest for him to escort me under the pretense of giving me away to Mark when he was also acting as Mark's representative and clearly had his interests in mind. I thought it was funny.
I'd asked Ryan's wife Allison to be my witness and stand up with me. She and I had gotten closer after I helped Ryan secure the property for her bed and breakfast and he started bringing her to the ranch to spend time with the horses. While I was getting ready, I'd asked her to go downstairs and check on the baby, but I was still expecting my brother when there was a quick knock on the door before it opened.
