Could We Pull it Off? Part 2

After dinner with Lauren, we went back to her house where we worked on a bottle of wine while I waited for Brody to be done with work and come get me.  "So, how are things with Alex?" I asked her.  "Anything else you've been avoiding telling me for fear that I'll make a huge deal out of it?  I promise I'll keep my mouth shut, but this is your only chance."

Lauren laughed.  "No, and I wasn't avoiding telling you.  I was trying to figure out how to tell you in such a way that it wouldn't seem like a big deal.  I clearly failed.  And things are good." She smiled as she spoke.  "He's so excited to come home with me next month.  He can't wait to meet my mom and Lynn."

"Aw, that's sweet," I replied.  "I love that he's so excited about it."

"I kind of do too," she admitted.  "I'd never tell him that, though!"  We both laughed.  Then she said, "So you really don't want a big wedding or a traditional dress, huh?"

I shrugged.  "Not really.  I suck at planning stuff like that, and I'm worried that Brody will be too busy to help much.  Then I'll get pissed at him.  It's not worth it.  And I don't want a whole bunch of people I barely even know watching me get married."

"And the dress?"

"It's just not me.  I've looked at a few sites and nothing catches my eye or feels right.  I don't know.  I'm just not a big poofy dress girl, you know?"

Lauren rolled her eyes.  "Wedding dresses don't have to big and poofy, Olivia.  You should at least try some on."

"I don't know," I replied.  "I'll know it when I see it.  And so far, I haven't seen it."

"You're going to break your poor mother's heart," she pointed out.

I sighed.  "I know.  But my wedding isn't about her."

Lauren opened her mouth to say something, but was interrupted by a knock at the door.  She pulled it open and Brody was standing there.  "Hi," I greeted him, happy for the interruption distracting Lauren from whatever she was going to say.  He came in and kissed me lightly on the cheek and greeted Lauren.  They chatted while I slipped my shoes on and grabbed my purse.

When I was ready to go we said goodbye to Lauren and got in Brody's SUV.  When we were on our way, I turned my head to look at him, and I watched him concentrate on the road.  He must have felt my eyes on him, or saw me looking out of the corner of his eye, because he glanced at me briefly and smiled.  "What?" he asked.

"Nothing," I replied.  His eyebrow went up skeptically.  I took and breath and said in a rush, "Well, okay.  Lauren and I were talking about our wedding, and I mentioned some of the things that we'd talked about. You know, smaller wedding, short engagement, mountains, maybe in the fall?"  He nodded, and I continued.  "Do we still want those things?"

"I would still love those things," he said.  "Do you still want those things?"

"I do, but we'd be bringing new meaning to 'short engagement' if we shot for a fall wedding now," I replied carefully, watching him to gauge his reaction.  "Do you think we could pull it off?"

He shrugged.  "If we want a bigger, more traditional wedding, absolutely not." I nodded in agreement.  "But it sounds like you don't want that."  He glanced at me again, and I nodded again.  "So here's the thing.  If we want to plan a wedding now, and get married in a matter of months, I'm not in a good spot at work to be able to totally pull my own weight with the actual planning process.  I will do everything I can, but I'm worried that it would fall mostly on you.  If you're okay with that, and you want to get married this fall, I say we go for it.  If you want me to be more equally involved, I'm happy to do that, but we might have to push things out further.  What do you think?"

I considered this.  "I guess I'm not sure,"  I said finally.

"Why don't we do this," Brody suggested.  "We'll pick a few potential dates we might want to consider this fall and do some research on if we could even get a place for those days.  We might not be able to at this point and that will make the decision a little easier."

"Okay," I agreed.

"Do you..." he trailed and paused, and now he looked nervous.  "You said mountains.  Do you want to get married around here?"

"I do," I replied immediately.  "That part I'm completely sure about."

"Are your parents going to be upset about that?"

I shrugged.  "I have a feeling there is going to be a lot about this wedding that my mom is not going to love," I admitted.  "I know she'd love for me to have a big, traditional wedding with all the traditional wedding things, and that's just not me.  I hope that in the end she'll understand, but it's not her wedding, and I'm not expecting her to pay for it, so it shouldn't be about what she wants."

Brody chuckled.  "Okay.  I just wanted to know what I was getting myself into.  I agree that it should be about us, but I know how moms can be."

When we got home, we picked a few dates in October and did a little internet research.  It seemed crazy that just a couple months ago I was freaking out because he had asked me to move in with him, and just a month ago I was struggling to even have a hypothetical conversation about what I wanted for my someday wedding.  I could see why Lauren wanted to make sure I was happy, but wanting to marry Brody was never a question.  My biggest fear was everything falling apart when I moved in, and once I got over that, the biggest barrier was my ingrained habit of avoiding serious conversations about feelings and the future.  Those conversations were still hard for me to start, but once I got going, I could manage.  And it got easier every time, as I finally started to figure out that talking to Brody about these things was way different than trying to talk to John about...well, about anything.

As we looked at a few things online, I made a list of places to call.  I'd make some phone calls over breaks between clients at work.  If we were going to actually try to plan a wedding in 4 months, I preferred somewhere we could have the ceremony and the reception.  The less coordinating of things I had to do, the better.

"Hmmm, Liv, look at this," Brody said.  He turned his laptop towards me.  I scrolled through the page he was on.  It was a website for a restaurant that had a small banquet room on the upper level.  Its maximum capacity was 74 people, which was perfect.  It didn't look like they did a lot of weddings, but they boasted an in-house catering team and event coordinator.  Reading further, I saw they did a lot of corporate retreats and other events of that nature.  That was promising, as it seemed to me that that would make it less likely that they'd be booked.  Maybe not, but in my head it made sense.

On my laptop, I googled the name of the restaurant and clicked on the "Images" tab.  I found some pictures of the restaurant part and then a few pictures of it set up for events.  It was a fairly basic space with not much in the way of decoration, but it was rustic, with exposed beams and high ceilings.  I loved it.  I continued to scroll through the photos and finally stopped on a shot out the windows, which were floor to ceiling and took up an entire wall.  The view was breathtaking, and I was instantly sold.  I'd always imagined my wedding would be outside, but that wasn't going to be an option for fall in the mountains.  These floor to ceiling windows were a perfect compromise.

"Where is it?" I asked him, clicking back to my google search to find the restaurant's website.

"That's the thing," he replied.  "It's a little further away than some of the other places."  He pulled up a map and showed me, explaining, "It's not far from where my mom lives.  Remember after dinner with my dad, I asked you to drive up to that random spot?" I nodded.  "This is about 10 miles from that spot.  It's probably almost 2 hours from here."

I frowned and considered this.  "The closest place we've looked at so far is an hour away," I mused.  "I don't think one more hour will make that much difference.  I can at least call."

We spent the next hour throwing together an initial guest list, just to make sure we didn't have too many people for the smaller space.  No point in even calling if we couldn't fit our guests there.  When we were finished, we had 52 people on the list.  We'd stuck to family friends we were close to--people we knew we'd actually be disappointed about if they couldn't make it.  I knew we were probably forgetting some, but a 74-person capacity gave us enough wiggle room that we knew we'd be okay.

We'd stayed up way too late for a school night, but I was giddy with excitement over the possibility that I might be able to have my fall wedding.  I tried to talk myself down, reminding myself that we didn't know if the venue had any of the weekends open that we wanted.

"You're going to call tomorrow?" Brody asked, as we got into bed.

"Yes, probably on my lunch break," I confirmed.  "If they're open that weekend, can I set something up for us to go check it out on Saturday or Sunday?"

"That's what I was thinking," Brody replied.  I smiled to myself in the dark, happy that we were on the same page.