All Chapters of The Wedding I Didn't Choose : Chapter 1 - Chapter 7

Celia found a parking spot half a block from the boutique and walked the rest of the way. Through the front window a bride stood on the low fitting platform in a column of satin while a seamstress knelt at the hem with pins in her mouth, and an older woman in a camel coat watched from a sofa with her hands folded, offering some opinion that did not carry through the glass.Three weeks earlier it had been Celia on that platform, wearing her mother's gown. It was ivory lace over silk, with a simple fitted bodice, long sleeves that tapered to a point at the wrist, and a short train that seemed plain beside the beaded dresses on the racks around it. Her mother had worn it on her own wedding day, and because the two of them had been nearly the same height, the seamstress had needed to do very little. Celia had turned slowly so the hem could be checked, and in the mirror she had looked a little like the woman in the photograph on her bedside table.The bell over the door gave its small dull

Celia dug her phone out of her jacket pocket, and her mother answered on the second ring with the television going somewhere behind her."Sweetheart? Isn't it dinnertime up there?""Almost. Mom, Colin asked me to marry him."The pause on the line went on long enough that Celia started to say it again, and then she heard a sound that was half a laugh and half something else. The television went off."Oh, sweetheart. Oh, I'm so happy. Is he there? Put him on."Celia handed the phone over, and Colin took it as easily as if he talked to her mother every week, which by then he more or less did. "Hi, Elaine.""Don't you 'hi, Elaine' me. You never asked my permission.""I meant to. I got nervous and forgot.""You did not forget. You were afraid I'd tell her.""That too."Elaine laughed properly then, in a way Celia had not heard in a long time. Colin got up and wandered a few steps toward the creek, describing the ring, and since her mother had never been able to talk quietly when she was ex

Caroline picked her up at nine on a Saturday in the middle of October, with a covered dish on the back seat and the heat turned up higher than the morning needed."Chicken and rice," she said when she caught Celia looking. "Ruth won't eat it in front of us, but she'll eat it."When Caroline had called during the week, Celia had expected it to be about the wedding. Instead the question was whether she would like to come and meet someone, and something in the way it was asked had made her agree before she knew what she was agreeing to.They drove out past the edge of the city, where the houses spread farther apart and the trees crowded in. For a while they talked about dates and whether next fall was too long to wait, until Celia ran out of things she knew to say about the wedding and asked the question she had been carrying around for three weeks."What am I actually agreeing to? Not with Colin. With the rest of it."Caroline took her time answering, the way her son did. "Mostly, peopl

In the last week of November, Celia made the first call on her lunch break, eating a sandwich at her desk at Ellery with a legal pad beside her keyboard. She and Colin had agreed on a list of vendors back in October, but she had put off calling them for weeks while the work on his merger ramped up. It felt good to finally start crossing things off.The florist answered after a couple of rings, and her voice was so cheerful that it was impossible not to like her. Celia gave her name and the date and explained that she was hoping to set up a meeting about flowers for the hall."Oh, of course. Ms. Harrow came in last week, so we already have a proposal drafted. Burgundy and gold for the arch, with the centerpieces to match. I can email it over so you can see everything."Celia stopped with the sandwich halfway to her mouth. "Ms. Harrow. Paige Harrow?""That's right. She said she was handling the details for you and Mr. Merrill."Celia thanked her, asked her to send the proposal, and hung