Yellowstone: Love and Cowboys

Wedding Planning

Gemma Dutton was determined to give her daughter the wedding she deserved. She had not been happy about her daughter and Travis getting married at the courthouse. She had told Travis that his days would be numbered if he did not keep his promise to give her daughter the wedding she deserved. To her surprise, he proved as good as his word and told Gemma to prepare for a May fifteenth wedding. Her opinion of her daughter's husband improved.

Coralee and Katie falling out created a problem for her mother. She loved both her daughters but understood how badly Katie had hurt her sister. She wanted to see Katie invited to the wedding but knew she could not force the situation. All she could do was wait, and hope.

The falling out with Katie had broken Coralee's heart but she was but she was determined not to let it put a damper on her special day. She was face-timing her mother every day, discussing flowers, cake, and what Gator should prepare for the wedding dinner.

She'd found her dress, an "Invisible dress" covered with strategically placed white flowers. It was slim, modern, and had a fullness in the back that made a modest train. Her mother had wanted her to get a ballgown, or maybe a mermaid dress, but Coralee wanted simple, and simple was what she got. She would wear a white straw Stetson and white cowboy boots, her mother would hate it, but it would be perfect.

Her mother had wanted her to choose her sister as a maid of honor, but Coralee insisted on having Monica who had answered with an enthusiastic "yes" when Coralee asked her. She told her to pick her dress and choose whatever style and color she liked. She liked Monica and although she loved the one sister she still spoke to, she felt Monica was part of Yellowstone. They'd always gotten along and enjoyed each other's company. She couldn't see anyone else but Monica to stand up for her. Once it would have been Katie.

By a stroke of luck, the weather in Montana would be in the sixties the week of her wedding. She wanted to get married on the lawn in front of her uncle's house. Tables would be set up for dinner, but guests would stand for the ceremony itself. Gator would barbeque brisket, ribs, and chicken, and would fix his famous cornbread, biscuits, and potato salad. He insisted that he could not have a barbeque without baked beans, so Coralee had to relent.

Travis was happy to see her plunge herself into wedding planning. He would listen to her talk to her mother: should there be corsages for the women and boutonnieres for the men? What color should the bride and the maid of honor's bouquets be? She was insisting on having roses and baby's breath, only the color of the roses was in question.

Every night she went to bed happy and tired. In the morning she could not wait to begin her reining sessions and in the afternoon, Travis had to tell her it was time for her to stop practicing cutting and come in the house for dinner. Her appetite returned and she began to gain back the weight she lost. Her cheeks lost their sharp contours, and her body regained its soft curves.

Travis had planned to pay for the wedding, but John and Ben Dutton told him they would take care of it. The only thing he would pay for was the trip to Cozumel she had her heart set on. She told him which hotel they should stay at, and what they would do when they got there. She also insisted on flying economy, the flight would be long, but she thought the cost for first-class seats exorbitant.

All was going well in their lives, and although life on a ranch could be uncertain, things seemed quiet and uneventful. Life was not so easy for John Dutton, the state of Montana was trying to seize land for a huge recreational development. The fate of both development and ranch was up in the air. Ben informed his son-in-law that the wedding was coming at a good time, his brother needed a diversion, and the wedding could not be timelier.

Travis asked Coralee if she knew, and she replied that she did not know much about the ranch's legal troubles. Sometimes she wished she had pursued a law degree so she could be of help to her uncle. The matter was out of her hands, all she could do was wait and see. She opposed the development, it was the right thing in the wrong place, and their ranch should be left alone. Seven generations of Duttons had lived on the Yellowstone, she thought the concept of "eminent domain" should be illegal and the state should not be allowed to condemn land to seize it.