Chapter 2
My mother stared at the invitation for several seconds.
Then she read the date again.
And that was when she finally understood.
I hadn’t changed my wedding date.
I had only changed the venue.
The wedding was still happening on the exact same Saturday my parents had handed to my sister.
My phone started ringing again.
Mom.
I let it ring.
Then a text appeared.
CALL ME. NOW.
Another.
WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?
Then my sister called.
I answered her instead.
She didn’t say hello.
“You kept the date?”
“Yes.”
There was a long silence.
“But Mom said you were moving your wedding.”
“I moved the wedding.”
“To another date.”
“No. To another venue.”
“That’s not what they told me.”
I looked across the kitchen at my fiancé.
He had been standing quietly beside the counter, watching me with that expression he had worn through this entire disaster.
Not angry.
Not smug.
Just steady.
I put the phone on speaker.
“My wedding was always June fourteenth,” I said. “Mom and Dad told me you needed my venue. They never said you needed my wedding date.”
“But the venue reservation was for June fourteenth.”
“Exactly.”
My sister went quiet again.
Then I heard my mother’s voice in the background.
“Put me on.”
A moment later, Mom was shouting through my sister’s phone.
“You cannot have your wedding on the same day!”
I almost laughed.
“Why not?”
“Because your sister is getting married!”
“So am I.”
“Don’t be childish.”
There it was.
Not cruel.
Not selfish.
Not unreasonable.
Childish.
The word my mother had used whenever I stopped making things easier for everyone else.
When I was eleven and didn’t want to give my sister the new bicycle I had received for my birthday, I was childish.
When I was sixteen and refused to cancel plans with friends because my sister suddenly needed a ride, I was childish.
When I was twenty-three and said I couldn’t leave work early to help decorate for one of her parties, I was childish.
Apparently, having my own wedding on my own wedding date qualified too.
“Mom,” I said calmly, “you gave away my venue. Not my wedding.”
“You knew what we meant.”
“No. I knew what you said.”
My fiancé covered his mouth to hide a smile.
Mom heard the silence.
Then her voice changed.
“You planned this.”
“No.”
“Yes, you did. You deliberately found somewhere more extravagant because you wanted to embarrass your sister.”
I looked down at the invitation.
The front read:
June Fourteenth.
The ceremony location underneath it was printed in simple black lettering.
Aster House.
That name was the reason Mom had called fourteen times.
Aster House wasn’t a hotel.
It wasn’t a country club.
It wasn’t a commercial wedding venue.
It was a private estate sitting on almost two hundred acres about forty minutes outside the city.
Stone terraces.
Old oak trees.
A glass conservatory overlooking a lake.
Guest cottages.
Gardens that had been there for nearly a century.
The estate hosted occasional charity dinners and private events, but it did not accept normal wedding bookings.
My mother knew that.
Everybody in her social circle knew that.
Several years earlier, one of her friends had tried unsuccessfully to hold her daughter’s wedding there.
The answer had been no.
My fiancé’s late grandfather, however, had spent thirty years in business with the family that owned Aster House.
Our families had remained close.
When my fiancé told them what happened with our original venue, they made one phone call.
The answer was simple.
Of course.
We had originally declined the idea of marrying there because I didn’t want our wedding to feel like something we had received through connections.
I wanted something neutral.
Simple.
Ours.
So we had booked the other venue.
I had spent eleven months planning around it.
Then my parents gave it away.
Suddenly, I stopped caring whether accepting someone’s kindness looked too special.
Aster House wasn’t chosen to hurt my sister.
It was chosen because somebody had looked at what happened to me and said something my own parents hadn’t.
That isn’t fair.
Come here.
We’ll help.
I explained none of that to Mom.
She already knew enough.
“You need to change the date,” she said.
“No.”
“We have relatives flying in.”
“So do I.”
“Your sister has nearly two hundred guests.”
“That’s why you said she needed my venue.”
“And what are people supposed to do now?”
“Choose which invitation they accept.”
Mom gasped.
“You’re making the family choose between you.”
That one almost got me.
Almost.
Then I remembered sitting at our dining table two weeks earlier while she told me my sister’s guests were more important.
I remembered Dad saying I was “more flexible.”
I remembered my sister sending a heart emoji after Mom told her the transfer was complete.
Nobody had called me to ask what losing the venue meant for my wedding.
Nobody had asked whether my guests had purchased flights.
Nobody had asked about deposits.
Nobody had asked what I wanted.
They had made the choice.
I had simply refused to erase myself afterward.
“You made the family choose,” I said. “You scheduled her wedding on mine.”
Mom hung up.
For the next hour, messages came from everywhere.
Dad.
My sister.
Two aunts.
My grandmother.
A cousin who had somehow been told that I had deliberately scheduled my wedding against my sister’s.
Then Dad called.
I answered.
“What exactly are you trying to accomplish?” he asked.
“Getting married.”
“This isn’t funny.”
“I’m not joking.”
“You know perfectly well what this does to your mother.”
That sentence told me everything.
Not what it did to my sister.
Not what it did to me.
My mother.
“This is not about Mom.”
“It became about this family the moment you decided to create a competing wedding.”
I sat down.
“A competing wedding?”
“You know what I mean.”
“No. I really want to hear you explain it.”
He sighed.
“Your sister’s event is already confirmed.”
“So was mine.”
Silence.
I continued.
“My caterer was confirmed. My photographer was confirmed. My florist was confirmed. Guests had already saved the date. We had already paid deposits. The only thing you controlled was the venue reservation because you offered to put it on your card.”
“We paid for that venue.”
“And that’s why I didn’t fight you when you took it.”
“We didn’t take anything.”
“What would you call it?”
“We reassigned it.”
I laughed.
I genuinely couldn’t help myself.
“Dad, it’s a wedding venue. Not office parking.”
“You’re being disrespectful.”
“No. I’m finally being precise.”
His voice hardened.
“If you refuse to move your wedding, your mother and I will have no choice but to attend your sister’s.”
That hurt.
I won’t pretend it didn’t.
For all my anger, some small part of me had still been waiting for them to recognize how far this had gone.
Instead, Dad had just turned attendance at my wedding into a threat.
I looked at my fiancé.
He didn’t say anything.
He didn’t need to.
So I answered.
“I understand.”
Dad seemed caught off guard.
“That’s it?”
“What else should I say?”
“You should think about what you’re doing.”
“I have.”
“If you go ahead with this, don’t expect us to abandon your sister on her wedding day.”
“I don’t.”
Another silence.
Then I said the sentence that finally ended the conversation.
May you like
“But don’t expect me to abandon myself on mine.”
He hung up.
