I've heard about the famous phenomenon of girls turning into some crazy mess called Bridezilla before. Saw several movies about it. Laughed and shook my head at it. What I didn't know before is that how completely accurate is the depiction of wedding planning madness. I am not proud to admit this, but I think I am starting to turn into one of them, the Bridezillas. There are so many shits to choose for my wedding with Sophie. Even when I already have a wedding planner. It's so fucking tiring and frustrating, it's completely ridiculous. Like I care that there are more than fifteen different shades of white. Lilac white, broken white, pure white, linen white. It's all the same white to me, okay? And how am I suppose to choose which roses match with the food? Are they even complimentary to each other? I mean, both of them serve completely different purposes. So why the hell they have to match?
Today Sophie and I are supposed to pick the right invitation for the wedding. Greg is with us, babbling about the colors and types of paper. He is our wedding planner. Apparently, there's some rule about how every male wedding planners have to be ridiculously gay. I thought that's just the Hollywood stereotyping. But no. It's actually a thing here. Greg made us to feel up the different textures of each type of paper for our invitation for the last half hour. Maybe there's something wrong with the nerves on my fingertips, but it all feel the same for me. As an architect, which deals a lot with design shits, I thought that I'd actually care about this. Nope. I just want it to be cream colored and has a beautiful calligraphy font for the text. That's all. But of course hell has to turn frozen before Greg let us pick anything in timely manner. The other thing that also ticks me off is that Sophie is actually fine with it. She went along with Greg's jabbering when we chose the flowers, menu, venue, and so on. On the other side, I silently contemplated to fake a seizure just to be done with it. Crazy, huh?
"Hey, babe," Sophie calls me from the aisle across of me. "Look at this. Which one do you like better?"
She approaches me with an excited smile on her face, holding two almost-identical papers on her hands. The one on the left has more rough texture and creamy color, while the other is smooth and shiny looking with an off white color. See what I did there? I learned something from Greg's lifelong lectures. Sophie shifts her gaze between me and the paper, waiting patiently for my opinion. I try to play along for her sake.
"Hmm, both of them look pretty good for me," I finally say, unable to form more opiniated comment.
"Oh, come on, love," she grins playfully. "You're the designer here. Your opinion weights more than me for this matter."
"Well, if you say so." I sigh inwardly and pay a better look at the papers. "I think we should go with the one on your right. The shiny texture will complement the calligraphy better than the other one."
"Great choice, love." She pecks my cheek and goes back to Greg, the wedding god.
I look around the shop to find a seat, since I'm utterly exhausted from this wedding planning. I watch Sophie happily chat with the shop's owner and Greg, deciding on the invitation details. My phone buzzes and shows off Cara's name on the screen. She sent me a text. The very first one after I got engaged to Sophie, which I am pretty sure is a sign that she got the news.
"Hey, congrats on your engagement. How's the wedding planning?"
I roll my eyes at her choice of topics. It seems that wedding is the only thing that people wants to talk about these days.
"Just great. Just found out that there are hundreds type of papers and colors to choose for the invitation."
I click sent and check the other messages on my phone. Not long, her reply comes in.
"Not so fun, eh? So you're not the type of girls who plan their wedding since they're nine?"
I scoff loudly, making Sophie turns at me with a quizzical look on her face. I just wave her off with a goofy grin and a shrug. She chuckles and mouths, 'five minutes more' at me. Yeah, right. More like an hour more, Soph.
"Nope. Actually tired of this infuriating shits."
Cara didn't reply for a long time, so I put back my phone into my pocket. Bored as hell, I go to Sophie and join in the conversation. Just how I predicted it, we got out of the shop an hour later.
"I am sorry, love. You look so tired," she wraps her arms around my waist and pulls me in for a soft kiss on the lips. "How about we go home, order in and relax with a bottle of wine? Sounds good?"
"Now you're talking business," I grin happily and loop my arm around hers as we walk back to our car.
*
"Tell me that I'm wrong, but aren't you supposed to be all excited about this? The wedding? It should be the biggest day of your life, Jess. Maybe it's the wrong kind of wedding for you. Or the wrong person. I'm just saying."
Cara's reply nearly made me want to throw my phone against the wall. How dare she said those things to me? That's so fucking out of the line. Especially coming from her, my freaking ex. So she's still trying to get me back. Dammit, she's crazy for saying this this, but I feel like there's some truth in her words. I am supposed to be excited about this.
While I'm deep in my thoughts, Sophie puts on some music to accompany our night. A bottle of Merlot already opened and being left to breathe for a while. She flops down onto the couch and decides on which movie to watch. As if sensing my silence, she calls out to me, prying me away from my confused mind.
"Love, come here." She pats on the spot beside her. I oblige and snuggle against her. Her soft and warm body calms me a little. She eyes at me with a concerned look. "Jess, I know that the planning can be so tiring sometimes," she says while she brushes my hair gently, "but I just want the wedding to be perfect for both of us."
I lift my head up a little from the previous spot on her shoulder. I look into her affectionate gaze at me and know that my surfacing doubts would hurt her. This isn't fair for her, being left in the dark about my inner turmoils. But I don't know how to spell it out to her. I just don't. I can't hurt her. She's too good for me.
"I know, baby. I want it to be perfect too."
One months before the wedding. There's not much room for second thoughts.
