A Beautiful Day for a Wedding

Ms. Jenn

Jennifer loved weddings. Two people pledging to love and cherish each other forever, always felt like the ending of a musical (the happy ones at least). While reality may eventually tear those two people apart, the fairy tale quality of the wedding was still so enjoyable. Today was a little different for a few reasons, first was the fact that everything didn't feel like a fairy tail and that was especially bad considering it was her wedding day.

While she had always pictured her wedding being giant and glamorous with a guest list of who's who from Broadway and Hollywood, the reality was far from that. Jennifer wasn't a Broadway starlet, she was a teacher. She wasn't marrying some up and coming movie and tv star, her husband was a teacher as well. And with two teacher salaries they couldn't afford a big blow out of a wedding. Instead they went to the courthouse for the ceremony and were having the reception in the East High gym. It should have been sad, but what was surprising is she wouldn't have it any other way.

After a transcendent first date in New Zealand, you'd think everything else would be downhill from there, but her relationship with Benjamin had only grown stronger when they got back stateside. After a few years of dating and finding out her Tin Man really did have a heart, they finally decided it was time. So after begging Principal Gutierrez to let them use the gym for their reception (the day after prom so they wouldn't have to set up anything), they sent out invitations and waited eagerly for the day.

The wedding had been small, the only people in attendance being a justice of the peace, a few witnesses made up of members of the first inaugural class of Wildcats, and of course the bride and groom's best man and man of honor, EJ and Carlos respectively. Despite it not being like she had imagined it, Jennifer was so happy she could hardly believe it.

With the decorations from the Prom the night before lining the gymnasium and all the Wildcats from the last few years scattered at various tables, Jennifer felt more at home than she could think possible. Thanks to the Redonoviches, they got a great deal on catering and currently everyone was enjoying their food.

Miss Jenn looked around at her babies with a sense of pride. There was Carlos and Seb talking to their various table mates, Carlos probably bragging about his latest choreography gig of being assistant choreographer for the Kinky Boots Broadway revival, while Seb mentioned his family bakery's opening new locations including their expansion out of state. With them was EJ checking his e-mail every five seconds to see if he'd have a job in the coming months since he was graduating soon. Maddox and Ashlyn were so wrapped up in each other, this being one of the few times they'd gotten to see each other that year, they weren't bothering to pay attention to anything around them. Jet was dramatically staring off into the middle distance while picking at his pasta. And of course there was Ricky and Gina listening to Carlos and Seb intently even though they probably had more to talk about with their careers starting to take off.

Sadly Nini and Kourtney were unable to attend. Nini couldn't come because she was on tour in Europe, and Kourtney was in the middle of an intense internship at a designer label. It was sad not having them there but they both made up for it by purchasing two very expensive items on the registry. Emmy was somewhere, she seemed to disappear and reappear at random intervals (Miss Jenn was still suspicious that she was a ghost of some kind). As Jennifer and Benjamin looked around at their friends and family and former students, they both felt truly loved by everyone around them.

The reception went as expected for the most part and was an absolute blast. The couple had their first dance, they cut the cake, and went around talking to everyone and the toasts caused Jenn to have several breakdowns. Not long after that everyone took to the dance floor and partied for a couple hours. One thing that did take Jenn by surprise when Benjamin leaned over and whispered he had a special present for her. Her befuddled look was matched by most people as Benjamin, Ricky, EJ, Jet, and Carlos all shooed people off the dance floor as the music suddenly cut out and the all five went into middle of the dance floor.