Beauty and the Bridesmaid

Chapter Twenty Three

I’m not the sort of girl who spends much time thinking about weddings and getting married. I’m not really even sure I want to get married. At least not like some girls do. Not like Lela.

Well, okay, let’s be totally honest. I might, once or twice, have imagined what my dress will look like or how I’ll have my hair. But those are important things, aren’t they? It’s not like I dream about the insignificant details like colour schemes and seating plans.

But standing in the room set up for Lela and Ash to get married in, I start to wish that this was my wedding.

The function room where the pair will actually marry is simply decorated with a finely patterned blue carpet and blue chairs tied with deep purple ribbons around them.

But the adjoining reception suite is stunning. It’s all done up to match Lela’s choice of colours (of course) with white-clothed chairs and their purple covers surrounding large round tables all set up in an orderly seating plan. 

The table decorations aren’t just cheap wedding confetti and those little silver pieces shaped like champagne bottles and wedding rings.  Flowers of plum, violet, lavender and lilac spill from little baskets placed precisely in the centre of each table.

And that’s not where the purple scheme ends. Ribbons of every shade are hung from the ornate ceiling, twisting around the sparkling crystal chandelier. The private bar that runs along the beautiful room’s back wall is decorated with the same ribbons crisscrossing each other and wrapping around the small square stools that align it.

The underskirt of my dress scratches against my bare legs. Okay, I wish this was my wedding with maybe just a little less purple.  

I stand still at the back of the ceremony room, watching the other guests flock to their seats. Lela’s booked registrar is waiting for the couple at the other end of the room.

Everyone from the bar last night, plus loads of other people I don’t know and some more of Ash’s family are slowly filling up the seating rows.

“Jade!” hisses a voice.

I turn back to the open doors, where guests are still entering. Steph is poking her head around one of the tall white doors, making a beckoning signal with her visible hand.

“What is it?” I ask, weaving my way through the last of the crowd.

“You’re supposed to be out here!” she replies, flapping her arms at me. “You were at the rehearsal, weren’t you? The three of us follow Lela in.”

“Oops,” I say, realising that I’ve got carried away checking out the rooms.

Of course that’s what bridesmaids do. They follow the bride. And the bride can’t go in until all the guests are seated.

“Where’s Lela?” I say, scoping the emptying hallway.

A few guests are still chatting idly to each other before they go in, and I spot Kerry deep in conversation with a mystery male.

“She’s hiding until everybody’s gone. You need a bit of shock factor at weddings, don’t you think? When the bride enters the room for the first time and everyone’s in awe of her dress.”

I almost laugh. The last thing this wedding needs is any more shocks.

I know it’s what Lela wants though. She always used to dream about gliding into a room in a huge wedding dress and hearing everybody gasp and talk about how amazing she looks.

Even now with people still muttering about what exactly went on between her and Josh Graves, she’ll still be beaming with the attention and the compliments about how nice her hair looks or whatever.