Everything Has Changed //Ryan Blaney//

3.5 - Parties

Sienna

With the twenty nineteen Nascar season in full swing, that put a bit of a damper on having Ryan around for wedding planning. Thankfully Sophia, Erin, Eleanor and baby Lili had become great substitutes. Emma being so many hours away in Vienna, was always messaging me about designs and great venues. Which was tremendously appreciated because Ryan and I weren't sure where we wanted to get married. I was fine with anywhere; my family was fine with traveling, but we hadn't made up our minds on it yet.

Ryan had tried his best despite the ever-persistent job keeping us away most weekends, add in the fact that Eleanor had school through the week and the only time we got to talk about things was in the evenings when we were getting ready for bed. And by that time, we were both so wiped out that we talked for a minute before passing out.

By the beginning of the playoffs, I was on a stress level of one hundred. The wedding date was fast approaching, happening on the off weekend we had between Bristol and Darlington in August. Last-minute planning had begun, and I was trying to make sure that everything was in order. We had decided to stay local for the wedding, very local indeed. As we were doing a backyard wedding. We had transformed one of the large barns over the spring, and whenever we could in the summer, into a nice space to have our reception. It also saved us money on picking a venue.

We had turned the field into a bright and open space for the nuptials. White chairs lined up on two sides. We had tried to condense it down as much as we could, and even with family and friends we still had managed to keep it under one hundred. Invitations had been sent out to a lot of the drivers, with a promise to keep everything top secret. No word of the date to anyone outside of the community as we were trying to keep it pretty lowkey; although the interviews were trying their hardest to find out any crumb of details they could. A lot of the drivers were happy to be invited but had to decline for previous obligations.

"Chase just messaged me wondering what time the rehearsal dinner starts tonight, said he tried calling you, but it just kept going to voicemail." I had been gathering up stuff for Eleanor to stay with Ryan's parents tomorrow night when he walked into her room. El was looking forward to seeing Louie now that he was bigger and wasn't so prone to getting hurt, and Lisa had promised both Emma and me that everything would be fine; she was watching grandkids for us while we had our parties.

"I let Eleanor play with my phone so she's probably declining his calls. Tell him we'll meet everyone around six at the restaurant." I glanced at the clock on the wall noticing that the hour was fast approaching, and Eleanor was still in need of a shower and getting ready herself. Chase had taken his role of best man very seriously, even lending a hand with getting the barn set up. Harper had fit right into our group, coming out of her shell more after the first couple of times of hanging around everyone.

"I'll message him, if you see El, tell her it's time she starts getting ready."

As usually we were running a couple minutes behind, granted we had to make a stop at the shoe store because someone's strap had broken on her shoes so when Ryan pulled into the parking lot, we saw that almost everyone was here that needed to be. 

"I'll change Eleanor's shoes and be in right after you," I told Ryan when I opened the truck door and got out. "Don't be too long, can't keep these people waiting long." He joked, knowing that they were probably already a rambunctious bunch. I can only imagine all those boys together unsupervised; that being exactly how tomorrow will be.