Page 24 of Husband Material
“Minor National Security Incidentis the name of my sex tape.”
“Well, that’s ruined any possible segue I could have come up with, but when are you coming home?”
“Pretty much now unless—” My phone screen flashed ominously. “Shit, the venue’s calling. I have to take this.”
And so I hung up on the boyfriend I was just patching things up with to do a bit more wedding admin. Five minutes later, I realised I was going to have to do a lot more wedding admin.
“Uh, guys?” I did my best to attract Bridge’s attention.
“Yes, Luc?” She was all smiles again. “And thanks for being there for me. You’re the best.”
“Yeah, about that. You know the church?”
Bridge’s face fell. “The church where I’m getting married?”
“That would be the one. That was their vicar on the phone, and it’s… Well, it might have, umm, ever so slightly… Well, it might have burned down?”
"OKAY," I SAID. "I UNDERSTAND.Basically what I expected, thanks.”
It was the forty-fifth venue I’d called in two days, and it had given me the same answer as the other forty-four.No, funnily enough, we can’t fit in a lavish wedding of your dreams at less than a week’s notice. We’re kind of booked up.
I directed a bad-news expression at Bridge. We were back in her flat with Tom, who was taking a couple of days off to be with his fiancée and avoid getting an informant murdered, and Liz, who was working the church angle. “Sorry,” I told them.
“No, it’s fine.” Bridget had a severe case of it’s-not-fine face. “We’ll keep going. We can keep going, right?”
Liz looked up from her own phone. She’d annexed a corner of the room and had an enormous leather-bound planner, bulging with sticky notes and spare bits of paper, open in front of her. “I think churches are a no-go. I’d have to find one you had a connection to that wasn’t already hosting another wedding, then meet up with their vicar at extremely short notice and arrange a lot of complex theology things. And thatalsomeans I’m ruled out of officiating.”
It was the latest item in a long run of bad news, and Bridge gave an involuntary sob. “But wepromised,” she said. “When you first became an ordinand.”
“We originally promised that you were going to be myfirstwedding, and that didn’t pan out either.”
Both of them glared at Tom.
“Hey”—he put his hands in the air—“would you really want me to have proposed before we were ready just so you could keep a promise you made in your early twenties?”
“Yes,” cried Bridge. “It would have been romantic and it would have been perfect, and because we waited, we’recursedand everything is falling apart.”
Liz shifted uncomfortably. “I think as a vicar I should be on the side of taking marriage seriously?”
“Traitor.” Bridge wasn’t genuinely angry, but given how emotional the last couple of days had turned out to be, she was straying close to it.
“I think a civil ceremony might be out of the question as well,” I added. “Every registered venue I’ve tried has been booked for months.”
Staring at his laptop screen, Tom shook his head. “He’s right. We’re not going to find anywhere.”
“Ithink”—Liz stood up and ran her hands through her hair—“that you might have to decide whether you want aweddingor a weddingceremony.”
“What’s the difference?” asked Tom, glancing up.
“A wedding has legal status. A wedding ceremony is just a party, and then you do the legal bit quietly afterwards.”
“I don’t want my wedding to bejust a party,” wailed Bridget. “This is supposed to be the most important day of mylife.”
“Well,” I tried, “I suppose it depends on what you think makes it important.”
I must have done a good job with my calming voice because Bridge seemed genuinely calmed. “What do you mean?”
Urgh.That was what happened when you said nebulouslyreassuring things you hadn’t thought through. You had to back them up. And I had a seriously limited up-backing game. “I guess…if I was marrying Oliver, what I’d really want—what would really matter to me—would be making sure that it was him and me saying how much we loved each other and wanted to be together in front of all the people we cared most about. Our friends, our family. Well, my family. Well, my mum.”
