That Wedding (25 page)

I hang up the phone and scream with joy.

Phillip comes rushing into the doorway.

I look at him and can't help it.

Happy little tears start trickling down my face.

I look up to the sky and say thank you again.

I'm pretty sure I just got a wedding gift from my parents.

I excitedly tell Phillip what just happened.

He tilts his head at me. "But that means we're gonna have to do couple's counseling. I thought you were vehemently opposed to that?"

SCREEEECCCHHHH!!!

CRASH!!

BOOM!!

I'm pretty sure the truck carrying all my wedding dreams just crashed into a brick wall, burst into flames, and blew to pieces on impact.

My heart drops.

Oh my gosh. He's right. I can't have this wedding. I'm going to have to call her back and cancel.

I cover my face with my hand. "You're right, Phillip. I forgot. I got so excited that I forgot I can't afford it. I'll have to call her back and say no."

Phillip pulls me into his arms. "Princess, you want the big wedding. You never let anything stand in your way of getting what you want. Why are you gonna let a few couple's counseling sessions get in our way?"

"You know why, Phillip."

"I talked to Danny about it. He said couple's counseling was a breeze. They met with Lori's pastor like twice."

"It's who they want me to do the counseling with."

He pushes my chin up gently, so I have to look at his gorgeous brown eyes. "What do you want?"

"I want the big wedding, Phillip. I really do."

"Then let's do it. We'll go to counseling, make everyone happy, and we'll have the wedding of our dreams."

"What if counseling breaks us up?"

He looks at me seriously. "Really? Nothing will ever break us up. And I'm calling Mr. D right now." He grabs his cell, calls Mr. D, and says, "Hey, it's Phillip. We're considering going to marriage counseling. I agree a big wedding is what her parents would've wanted, and it's what she wants. But before we agree to your terms, I want to make one thing clear. We'll go to couple's counseling. We'll talk about our future marriage, but we will not be talking about her parents. You cool with that?"

Phillip nods his head and smiles at me. "Awesome. Then you can be the first to hear. We're getting married on January thirteenth at the International Hotel in Kansas City."

"Yes, sir. I'm excited too. I'll tell her."

Phillip gets off the phone and gives me a smug grin. "Done."

I wrap my arms around his neck. "I love you, Phillip. You always know the right thing to do. How do you always know the right thing to do?"

"You used to hate that about me, remember?" he teases.

"That's true. Sometimes it got in the way of my fun. It's funner when we're on the same team."

"It is. I think you better call the wedding planner right away, and then I'm taking you out for lunch. We seriously need to celebrate."

I call the wedding planner. Her name is Amy, and we connect right away. I can't wait to meet her! We talked about my budget, how I want the event to flow, and all of my ideas. I email her a powerpoint full of all my wedding inspirations.

She tells me, "We have exactly ninety-nine days until your wedding. Normally, the Save the Dates would go out ninety days in advance, so that's the first thing we need to do. Do you have a guest list you can send me?"

"Uh, well, no," I say. Then I give her the quick version of our first date engagement, how we've been engaged for less than a month, why we want to get married quickly, and how adorable Phillip is.

She's like, "Wow. Well, I'm glad you're used to moving fast because we have a lot of decisions to make and a short time to do it. Your wedding will be here before you know it."

I can't even believe it.

I'm going to be Mrs. Phillip Mackenzie in ninety-nine days.

I start to sing in my mind.
Ninety-nine bottles of beer on the wall, ninety-nine bottles of beer, take one down, pass it around, your wedding will soon be here. Hey!

I agree to get our guest list to her by next Sunday. She'll order the Save the Dates, go through all our ideas, and make a plan.

I immediately call Phillip's mom and tell her we have a date and a location. Normally, my first call would've been to Danny and Lori, but I was afraid since Mr. Diamond knew, she might get pissed if she heard it from them and not me. Then I called Lori and Danny and gushed about it some more.

I'M SO EXCITED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Like in case no one noticed.

I know I should do what it says in the wedding magazines and take each one of my bridesmaids out for a drink or a special lunch and ask her to be in my wedding in a very personal and loving way.

But they need to know NOW!!

Plus I'm so excited, I feel like I could burst.

So I call them all. I ask Lori to be my yet-to-be-named honor attendant. For my bridesmaids, I ask my best friends from high school, Lisa and Katie; Phillip's sister, Ashley; and my sorority sisters, Chelsea and Macy. They all excitedly said yes, and since I was on a roll, I also asked a couple other sorority sisters to help with the wedding. I'm not sure yet what exactly they'll do, probably be in charge of getting the party started, knowing them, but they may have to do the guest book or something first.

Phillip takes me to lunch at our favorite Italian restaurant to celebrate.

I'm surprised when he tells the waiter, "We'd like a bottle of champagne, please." Phillip never drinks during lunch.

Over champagne and chicken Alfredo, we decide that Danny will be his best man. His groomsmen will be his brother-in-law, Cooper; Joey, one of our best friends from high school; Nick, the Husker kicker who was always hanging out at our townhouse in Lincoln; and his fraternity brothers, Blake and Logan.

"What about ushers?" I ask.

"I was thinking Neil and Brandon for sure. What about Katie's husband, Eric?"

"I love Eric, but they aren't getting along great. In fact, Katie and Neil have been having lunch together."

"Lunch? Is that code for sex?"

"No, they really are just having lunch, but I get the impression that she wishes it was more."

"That sucks. It'd suck to get divorced. We're never getting divorced."

"I don't want to go through that either, so that means you're gonna have to be really nice to me. Always."

Phillip chuckles then runs his hand across my jawline. "I'm always really nice to you."

"I know, Phillip. You're perfect. Everything is perfect right now."

"That might be the champagne talking. And I was thinking we might need to stop at home before we go back to work. Do a little more celebrating."

His eyes sparkle at me, and I have to agree with him. "That sounds perfect too."

I'm sitting in Phillip's office waiting for him to finish up a meeting, so we can go out and do some more celebrating. It's a really good thing he works for his dad because between lunch and our little stop at home, we took a three hour lunch.

I think about what I have to do to get the dream wedding and decide Phillip's right. I'm just gonna do it.

I call Pastor John's office.

A woman answers. "Pastor John's office, Margie speaking."

"Margie, this is Jadyn Reynolds. I'm getting married and need to set up couple's counseling with Pastor John."

"He's been expecting your call, and you're in luck. I've got his calendar right here in front of me."

Wow! This really IS my lucky day. I don't have to talk to him!!

Is it unchristian of me to pray he'll get the stomach flu on the nights of our meetings?

She continues. "How's this Tuesday sound? You'll meet him every two weeks until your wedding."

"We'll be there," I tell her and then hang up as fast as I can.

Okay, so I've been a frugal girl. I inherited quite a bit of money when my parents died. My dad sold insurance for a living, so they were extremely well-insured. I had access to a lot of money at eighteen.

Did I go crazy?

Did I buy an expensive car?

Did I whisk all my friends away to the Caribbean for a party?

No, I put most all of it back into my trust. Safely invested in things I don't really understand, but that Mr. D says are safe and performing well.

And because of this frugalness, I like to buy things like shoes when they go on sale. Because shoes are to me what toilet paper and beer are to Phillip. It's important to him to always have a backup twelve-pack in the frig, and we can never be without six backup rolls of toilet paper, or we're on (flash the lights)
emergency reserve status
. I feel that way about shoes. A women needs backups in her closet. I mean, you never know when you might need a pair of leopard skin stilettos with red suede trim.

Today after work, I ran to a shoe sale at my favorite department store. And did I score!! I got three pairs of adorable shoes for what one would've cost at full price.

So you can imagine my surprise when I walk into my condo excitedly carrying my sale treasures, and Phillip starts giving me shit about shopping, spending money, and buying another pair of shoes he thinks I'll never wear.

"Phillip, these shoes were a very good deal. I got three pairs for the price of one!"