Toss the Bride Read online

  Gwen’s dress hangs on the big hook in the bride’s room. Even with the opaque garment bag covering it, the bright pink of the satin comes through like a low-wattage lightbulb. She was going to change into a kimono for the reception, but I think Gwen’s grouchy mother absolutely refused even to consider it. I imagine it would be a pretty nice kimono, since I love Gwen’s clothes. She wears cute skirts with bits of lace sewn on the edges and embroidered sweaters with touches of ribbon. All of the things she wears—sometimes paired with a floppy hat or chandelier earrings—are funky and feminine.

  Maurice sticks his head in the room, not bothering to knock. It’s so early that he knows no one will be changing clothes. In fact, the three of us are the only ones here so far. The church janitor let us in and then relocked the front doors. We’re in a Midtown Lutheran church just blocks from the famous Fox Theatre, a restored 1920s movie palace. When the wedding is over, the guests will walk down the street to the Fox for the reception in a ballroom that has a huge Tiffany glass skylight. I’m looking forward to this one. I’ve already been down to the ballroom this morning to make sure the caterers did their thing. Two hundred white chairs are ringed around white tables decorated with pink tablecloths and set with antique china. The entire room looks lovely.

  “Macie, can you come with me?”

  I give Gwendolyn a smile and move quickly to the door. Following Maurice down the hall, I wonder what has gone wrong. I can tell he is perturbed about something. Usually when I’m with a bride, he leaves us alone. But this is different.

  He leads me toward the sanctuary. We step from the hallway through the red wooden doors, and I gasp. I cannot believe what I am seeing. “No, no, this isn’t right!” I wail.

  The neo-Gothic interior of the church has been transformed. Ivy and white roses—the most traditional wedding flower combo ever—are pinned to the end of each pew. Big white looping ribbons top the staid flowers, and brass candlesticks encased in glass globes top the pews. Brass candelabrum loom from every perch near the front of the church. Ferns sit in white wicker baskets on the steps up to the altar. It is perfectly, numbingly, just like every other wedding I’ve helped arrange.

  I am having trouble breathing. The church is decorated in every way the opposite of what Gwendolyn had ordered. In fact, this is the exact nightmare of what Gwen—my funniest, most creative, and favorite bride ever—did not want at her wedding. All over Atlanta today, brides will walk into churches and rented halls just like this one. They will love it. Gwendolyn will not.

  “Where are the tropical flowers? You know, those imported hothouse blooms with the sticky thingies?” My words are coming fast. I’m not making much sense. “And the sari scarves for the ends of the aisle? The light pink candles on silver sticks?” I look at Maurice, but he seems to think I know the answer. “And who in the world put these ferns in here? There’s no room for the wedding party to stand near the altar!” I forget my usual whisper-in-church voice, and my words bounce off of the stone walls. I stalk up and down the smooth, polished center aisle.

  “Macie, I have no idea of what happened here. While you were with Gwendolyn, I was minding the caterers over at the Fox. At least that room looks correct. But this, this is going to push Gwendolyn over the edge.”

  I stand, mouth open and heart racing. I simply do not know what to do. Gwendolyn’s offbeat sense of style was going to make her day unique. That’s what every bride seems to want, but few follow through with it. They say they want it to be different, but in reality they desire ferns and rented candelabrum and the fancy caterer who was written up in Atlanta Magazine last month. I know they will pick the same readings, hymns, and Bach tunes as the bride before them.

  I’ve often thought that someone should open a wedding consulting business called Textbook Weddings. Brides would have a limit of three alterations to the preset schedule. Straight out of the box, each wedding would be the same. How perfect! This sanctuary would be the perfect one for Plan C—A Classy Wedding. I get chill bumps up and down my arms and look over at Maurice.

  “I simply don’t know what happened,” he is saying, more to himself than me.

  “I confirmed everything with Stella’s Blooms last week. They even told me how the tropicals were coming in on their own plane.” Gwen may be different and unique, but she is still wealthy.

  “What are we going to do, Maurice?” I say, glad that he’s the boss, not me.

  “Well, I’m going to get on the phone with Stella and raise some—”

  Maurice stops in midsentence, not because we are in a house of God, but because Gwen’s mother has arrived. From the way she tilts her head and gives a sparse smile from the back of the church, I would say she is triumphant.

  “Of course,” Maurice says to me softly. “Here we have our answer.”

  Gwendolyn’s mother has ruined her daughter’s wedding, and it hasn’t even started yet. I inhale and turn to face this woman who obviously loves common ferns and tacky bows more than her almost-married daughter.

  “Hello, Camille,” Maurice says, stepping into his smooth wedding-coordinator role. Although he is wearing his casual wedding-day outfit of a cotton shirt and pants, he acts as if he has donned the most elegant suit paired with custom loafers. Maurice oozes grace under pressure.

  “You like what I’ve done with the place?” Camille asks in low tones. Her mouth curls around the words, reminding me of a bad television villain.

  Maurice asks, “Where are the flowers we ordered for Gwendolyn? The sari scarves? Her pink handmade candles?”

  Camille pulls at the lapel of her beige jacket. Her mother-of-the-bride dress hangs in the bride’s room near the pink wedding dress. “I’ve made it no secret that I do not share my daughter’s penchant for shocking displays. I decided that I simply could not afford to have the family embarrassed by her—what would you call it?—unwashed bohemian tastes.”

  Nodding, Maurice crosses his arms. “But don’t you think you might have discussed this with us beforehand? Or perhaps with Gwendolyn?”

  “Oh, Gwennie won’t even notice. Look, you can hardly tell the difference in the white roses versus some other spiky thing she selected.”

  “Her tropical flowers were red and orange,” I say through clenched teeth. “I’m guessing she’ll figure it out.”

  Maurice gives me the most withering of warning looks. Since I think I might say something else, I slip away. I need to get to the bride before her mother does any more damage. I walk out of the sanctuary, and that’s when I hear the scream. It’s Gwendolyn.

  Gwen is racing down the hall toward me, holding a billowing white wedding dress in one hand. The lengthy train drags on the floor. A woman with a blow-dryer is giving chase. I follow them to the sanctuary. I can hear Gwendolyn screeching at her mother. She really gives it to her. I stand beside the red wooden doors to the sanctuary, unsure of whether or not to enter. Finally, I walk in just a few feet and pause under a stone arch.

  “You cannot expect me to wear a dress that you have picked out, Mother!”

  “You certainly will,” Camille says, eyeing the white dress draped over Gwen’s arm. Even though I’m some distance away, I can tell the dress is something Gwen would try on to humor her mother, but she would never, ever wear it. It has mounds of tulle and lace and bows and oh, it’s really dreadful. Gwendolyn’s pink dress may be loud to some, but she has designed it herself and it is brave and different and beautiful.

  “I will not wear it!” Gwendolyn’s short pink hair bobs as she says angrily, “Get rid of this now.”

  “You’ll do it like this or there will be no wedding, dear.”

  “You’re kidding, right? Since when did my wedding become your own personal bridal fantasy?”

  Camille is cool as she gives Maurice an apologetic look. “I’m sorry you have to see this, Maurice. Sometimes Gwendolyn is a little passionate.”

  “Don’t condescend, Mother.”

  Maurice clears his throat. “If I may offer a compromise.�
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  The women glare at each other and ignore him. Gwendolyn says, “If you don’t take this dress away and get rid of that evil hairdresser you sent over, I will not be responsible for how this day turns out. Don’t push me, Mother.”

  It is then that I realize the hairdresser is in the sanctuary, a few feet behind Gwendolyn, clutching her blow-dryer. She looks pained, as if she were wishing she could be transported about three thousand miles away. “I could do a faux French twist,” she says in a whisper.

  Gwendolyn ignores this and then seems to notice the sanctuary decorations for the first time. A shade of rage passes over her face. I’ve never seen someone so angry but not angry. It’s like she’s moved past angry altogether. I really feel for her. If Avery and I ever get married, my mother would be involved, of course, but she would content herself with the reception menu or the bridesmaids’ dresses. She would not remake the entire thing. Of course, I know Mrs. Leland would be heavily involved. Mr. Leland would probably insist on paying for it, too. Not as an insult to my parents, but because he and Mrs. Leland would invite so many society-type people. A quaint, country wedding back home would not be the type of shindig the Lelands would go for, no sir.

  I watch as Gwendolyn touches a stiff little white rose hitched to one of the pews. She fingers a stalk of baby’s breath and then turns to leave the church.

  “Gwendolyn! Don’t you walk away from me! Get back here right now!” Camille’s voice echoes throughout the ornate sanctuary. I can almost see the stained-glass images of all the saints frowning down on us.

  Gwen stops and turns, the white dress still in her arms. “I’m sorry you’ve had to waste so much money, and I really wish I could have enjoyed the flowers I ordered and that someone presumably paid for. But since I can’t, because of you, I am not going to show up here today in a few hours. I’m going to call Jake and we’re going to get married elsewhere.”

  Camille inhales so deeply I fear she will turn purple and fall to the floor. I picture her mean heart breaking onto the unyielding Lutheran tiles of the sanctuary. “You are being ridiculous, Gwendolyn Leigh. Your father and I have worked very hard to give you all of this and you will show up like a good girl and get married here.”

  “Mother, I have never been a good girl.”

  “You will not do this to me,” Camille says and presses her lips tightly together. “Think of what people will say.”

  I take a second and picture Jake, the fiancé. He’s probably at home, getting ready to get out of bed. I see him there, scratching his shaggy hair, wondering what time he should get showered and dressed and when exactly it was that Gwen wanted him at the church. Jake is an artist and a die-hard trail runner. If you want to find him, you have to check out his studio behind his house or his favorite park, Sweetwater Creek, a few miles west of town. He refuses to own a cell phone—something I find courageous in this town of people just panting to communicate—so he can be hard to track down. When Gwendolyn tells him what has happened, I know he will back her up. He probably will not even care where they get married, as long as they do. He’s that kind of guy.

  My watch beeps the hour: it’s 8:00 A.M. I get a queasy feeling because the bride is not dressed, she’s redefining the word angry, and there’s this little problem of where the actual ceremony will occur. At least the reception is taken care of, thank goodness.

  “Mother, if you could just see that I’m different and accept that, this day could have been very nice. As it is, it’s over for me. But I am going to get married to Jake today, even though I know you think I could do better to marry a lawyer or a bank president,” Gwendolyn says.

  “How is that artist going to support you and children? Have you thought about that?”

  Gwendolyn drops the white dress to the floor. Her mother makes a little whimpering cry and grabs for it. “That’s a Marie de Valledor!”

  “And my dress is a Gwendolyn Coldren. If you would just take a second not to be such a snob, you would see that it’s very nice. I’ve already had one order for the exact dress from an Emory student for her wedding next year.”

  If this bit of information changes anything in Camille, I can’t tell. She looks as uncompromising as she did when she walked into the sanctuary. Gwendolyn turns and rushes out, her pink hair making a streak through the solemn room of stone statuettes and stained-glass saints. I follow her. If she wants to change the wedding location, I will have a lot of work to do.

  In the bride’s room, Gwendolyn is crying just a little as she holds her cell phone up to her ear. “Jake, just come get me. My mother has really—I can’t explain it right now. Please come.”

  I walk in slowly, giving her space.

  “No, we’re getting married, but just not here. You should see the place. It looks like something every Atlanta bride would die for,” she says, rolling her eyes over at me. I nod in agreement. “And there’s this horrible dress. And a hairdresser. And who knows what else. She’s taken over my wedding—on my wedding day!”

  Gwendolyn hangs up and turns to me. “We’ve some details to work out. Are you up for it, Macie?”

  I say I am. This day is getting stranger by the minute. I wonder if Maurice would approve. He’s no doubt smoothing things over with Camille. With someone as prickly as she is, though, I think even Maurice will have a hard time making a dent.

  “Okay, okay,” Gwendolyn says, pacing back and forth in the overly floral-patterned bride’s room. Large vases of flowers crowd the antique dresser. “We have two hundred people arriving in less than two hours. We have the pastor, the wedding party, and the programs. Everything is perfect except for the fact that the church is decorated for the wrong wedding and my mother has a really big mean streak. I refuse to get married in that place.”

  “Do you want to have the wedding outside?” I ask. I don’t know why I think of it. It just comes to me. If she doesn’t like the way her mother took over the wedding, why not just get around it by moving outside? It’s hot out there, but it is nothing Atlanta people can’t handle. Plus, the ceremony is fairly short. Within no time, the guests will be in the air-conditioned beauty of the Fox Theatre.

  Gwen shuts her eyes and thinks for a moment. A lock of pink hair falls over her forehead. I hold my breath. I really want to be helpful.

  “I like it!” Gwendolyn says, her eyes opening wide. “But where? We have to use the parking we’ve reserved here at the church, and we can’t ask the guests to walk down to Piedmont Park. It’s too far, especially in the heat.”

  I think of the Midtown area. There are shops and bars and trendy eateries, but no secluded parks. Then I remember: The church has a little slice of manicured grounds near the main parking lot. It even has a fountain and clumps of begonias and impatiens. I tell Gwendolyn about it and she claps her hands. We decide the wedding party will walk down the outside main steps of the church and over to the impromptu wedding area. That way, she still gets an entrance. It will be sweet and dramatic.

  My next job is to find the pastor and let her know about the change of plans. Luckily, she’s in her study and agrees to it. I think the reverend is secretly rooting for the fashion designer/artist takeover of the wedding. I’ve heard this pastor has a tattoo, so I’m not surprised. She’s a rebel at heart.

  With the official stuff out of the way, I find Maurice and tell him what Gwen and I have worked out. He looks relieved and actually thanks me. This is a first. It turns out that Camille has gone back home to regroup, but she knows her time is running out. What can she do? She can’t stop people from coming at this point, and everything is paid for, so Gwen and Jake can get married if they want to.

  Maurice and I split up, he to make sure the little piece of park property is free of homeless sleepers, and me to make sure the programs are unboxed and that the musicians know the new plan. I find the flute player downstairs in the music hall and ask her to spread the word. She is tall and thin, in that languid musician way, and I think she gets it. You never can tell with those people. They
always seem to be playing notes in their head.

  I make a dash upstairs to the bride’s room and happily see that Gwendolyn is getting hugs from her just-arrived bridal party. Jake is there, too, helping her into her dress. I think this is sweet. They are one of those couples who couldn’t care less about the “don’t see the bride” rule on the wedding day. It seems sad that Camille is not there to help her daughter, but that is her choice.

  Maurice makes one last check down at the Fox to make sure the reception has not been tainted by you-know-who. He says that everything looks perfect. Is Iris’s cake there, and is it pink? I ask. He assures me it is. My guess is that Camille was impressed with the cachet of having a cake from Cake Cake. After all, Iris is exclusive.

  By the time the guests arrive, the ushers have done a good job setting up chairs in a semicircle around the fountain. A lot of people will have to stand, but at least those who need a seat will have one. The programs flutter in the guests’ hands just a tad because a perfect summer breeze is making the warm morning very comfortable. Maurice stands across from the parking lot, keeping an eye on his watch. He has changed into his suit, and I might be a little off, but I think his heart is beating like crazy. I believe we’re going to get away with this one.

  At the very last minute, a chauffered car pulls up to the curb and Camille and a man whom I assume is Gwen’s father step out, both dressed for the ceremony. A van stops behind them and out jump six or seven men who look as if they were just pulled off of a construction site. Camille waves them into the sanctuary. All of the guests turn, talking stops, and we wait. Maurice grimaces and takes a hesitant step toward the church. He probably senses this is beyond him by now.