Marriage of Unconvenience

“Yeah, I guess I should have known,” I said, as at least seven more people in wedding attire came down the hall. Kell and her girlfriend Lane, Jason, Ahn, Jamie and his partner Alex, and Cedar. The gang was all here.

“We couldn’t let you do this without us,” Kell said, giving both of us hugs. “You tried to be sneaky, but you made a fatal mistake telling Ansel.” I glared at him, but he just beamed.

“You’ll be glad they’re here,” he said, and then we all realized that we were even more behind schedule and needed to get into our dresses ASAP. Mom, Kell, Lane, Ahn, and Cedar all came with us to “help.”

Fortunately, there was a large changing room just for this purpose, but it was chaotic in there since we weren’t the only people getting married today.

I was shoved into a corner as I pulled on my skirt and tried not to rip any of the lace as the top was shoved over my head by too many pairs of hands to count.

Cara was having an even harder time with her dress as the zipper wasn’t going up. There was one moment of chaotic panic and then Anh got it to go up without ripping anything.

“Okay, hair,” Cara said before whipping her hair into a perfect messy bun in about three seconds. My mom sprayed her with hairspray and then made us stand there so she could “get the full picture.”

“Oh, girls. I’m just so happy for you.” She was tearing up and I thought about rolling my eyes, but there wasn’t time. We embraced and then filed out of the bathroom and dashed to check in and get our paperwork verified. From there, we went to a waiting room where someone would call us and then we’d get to have our little ceremony. Someone came and asked if we wanted traditional vows and I realized that I’d forgotten about all of that.

“We’ve got some,” Cara said, handing the person a piece of paper. “We also have music. Ansel?” He popped up and then went with the person to help them get the song ready. We were the first ceremony of the day, so we had a little advantage of setting our stuff up without a ton of pressure.

“We got you something else,” Mom said, looking at her phone and then waving someone else over.

“Are you kidding?” I said, but Cara smiled.

“You need to document this day,” Mom said, leaving no room for arguments. The photographer shook our hands and introduced himself.

“Uh, we didn’t really...” I started to say, but Cara was chatting with him and it seemed like they were long-lost best friends, so I shut my mouth and let him pose us for a few pictures. It was a little strange holding Cara and looking into her eyes and pretending to be romantic, but Zane, the photographer, said we were doing great and kept cracking jokes, so the both of us were laughing through every frame. At last our names were called and we walked into the room. My parents and our friends sat down in the rows of seats near the front and I tried not to drop my bouquet because my palms were so sweaty. We’d planned to walk toward each other, but that didn’t work out, and they put on the song so we started walking down the aisle. I glanced at both my parents and they were both crying. Honestly.

Cara and I got to the front, and the music volume lowered as the officiant in black robes welcomed us. We joined hands without him even telling us to.

“We are gathered here today to unite Cara Margaret Simms and Loren Lynne Bowman in holy matrimony,” he said, reading from an iPad.

I barely listened to the rest of his words and just kept holding Cara’s hands. Mine were shaking and sweaty, but so were hers. I just kept looking at her and telling myself that we could get through this.

“Loren, would you like to share your vows with Cara?” Wait, what.

“I didn’t write any,” I blurted out.

“That’s okay,” Cara said. “Just make some up, I don’t care.” Well, I sure as fuck cared. This might be the only time I got to do this, and I didn’t want to mess it up. Why hadn’t I thought about vows until now? I guess I didn’t expect to need them in this kind of ceremony.

“Oh, wow. Okay.” I took a deep breath and willed my heart to stop trying to pound its way out of my chest.

“Care. You’re my best friend. I love you so much and I will always love you. We’re meant to be in each other’s lives, as if we were created for each other. You’re the only person I want to tell when something good happens to me and when something bad happens to me. You’re always there for me, even when I ruin your spreadsheets.” She laughed and I saw tears running down her cheeks.