holiday syndrome

1. the wedding

"take the worst situations, make a worse situation" 

gif: mads

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MARLEY was always told as a child that she was stuffed like a teddy bear, pillowy in all of the right places and permanently warm. She grew into her curves and hollowed out in certain places; she even had a symmetrical face and healthy, copper hair. That was the extent of her beauty, as reminded by her sister, Mackenzie. 

She never dwelled on her lack of beauty and refused to let it hinder her future in fashion. From a young age, Marley was obsessed with beauty and aesthetic, constantly dressing her sister, Mackenzie, in clothes and taking photos of her. She asked for a polaroid camera at eight years old and pretended to be a fashion photographer. One day, she learned the power of writing and began to review clothes and their designers. All day long she would sit on her computer and brush her fingers across the screen, pretending that the photos of expensive fabric were slipping between her fingers. 

It turned out that all of those years of obsessing and admiring fashion did two things:

1 Marley became a popular blogger and ultimately was hired as a fashion journalist for a prestigious magazine that she grew up reading. 

2 Mack had grown to adore being dressed up and used her beauty to become a model. 

Symptomatic was the magazine that hired Marley and featured Mack almost monthly, forcing Marley into writing articles about her older sister. It was not that she didn't love her sister, but more that she had a strictly professional relationship with her. Even as children they would criticize and review each other instead of compliments or playing toys. The two girls were far better off being acquaintances rather than sisters. 

Because of their lacklustre bond, it was no surprise to Marley when an article appeared in Symptomatic announcing the wedding date of Mackenzie Greenwald. To read of her own sister's secret engagement was neither disappointing or offending, instead a mildly pleasant surprise. 

Good for her, Marley had thought absentmindedly, her lips twisting in a frown as she tried not to criticize the fonts used in the article. She always wanted to fall in love. 

Unlike her romantic sister, Marley had always been passive about the idea of falling in love. She never dreamed of wedding dresses, churches or bouquets. In fact, she had never even considered who she would marry; a man or woman? She figured that surely anyone ready for falling in love would have considered those factors first. 

Therefore Marley was happily confined in a life of a fonts, cats and ripped jeans. To her, that was a default life, because surely there were other options and better things. But being confined and safely surrounded by a protective border like the page of a magazine was far more comfortable than anything exciting and broad. 

There would never be anything or anyone else that could push her or pull her into something that she did not want to do. 

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"She wanted three photographers, not two," Marley retorted to the blonde wedding planner who had just announced that the photographers had arrived. The blonde just looked at Marley lamely with her pert, upturned nose seeming to mock Marley. "Do you not recall her specifically addressing the fact that she wanted a fashion photographer, a location photographer and one that specializes in polaroids?"

It seemed like Melinda Dame, who looked more like an escort than a wedding planner, had absolutely no recollection of this request. Marley had absolutely no idea how a professional could have messed up one of the most important parts of her sister's wedding. Ever since she was a little girl, she had listened to Mack tirelessly rave about how amazing her future wedding would be. But it all relied on location and the memories that would come from the photos.