♔Afterwards: Falling For Aspen♔✔️

Chapter 11: The Finishing Touches

💔America's POV💔   

This is the sixth day out of the month that I'll be staying in the palace. Right now, it's 3:00 pm. Princess Nicoletta is supposed to arrive in two hours. Whenever it's a few hours before a party starts, the palace staff always runs around trying to perfect the final touches. I don't know how they manage to do it, but they do.

Celeste and I still need to get dressed for the party, so we left the Great Room to get ready.

"See you in two hours America." Celeste said. I got news from Aspen this morning that August and Georgia will arrive after dinner today during the party in the Great Room.

I walk inside my room to see my maids doing the last finishing touches to my dress. Anne revealed the dress to me and it was beautiful. It was over the top. It had a little sweetheart neckline with white straps.

The top half of the bodice is white with a white triangle in the middle. The bottom half of the bodice is gold. The skirt is is in a pattern of gold, white, gold, white. The skirt is long enough to touch the floor and it is nice and flowy.

"This is your dress, Lady America." Lucy said. I saw Anne was holding a pair of white shoes with a small 2"(inch) heel.

"We decided to only have a pair of diamond earrings as your only jewelry accessory, ma'am." Mary explained.

"Can I get dressed first?" I asked.

"Yes, you may Lady America." Anne said while getting makeup material ready at my makeup dresser. Lucy handed me the dress and shoes and I walked into the bathroom.

I walked out of the bathroom soon to hear compliments from my maids.

"You look stunning Miss." Lucy and Mary said at the same time.

"Yes, you look very beautiful." Anne said. I thanked them and sat down to get my makeup done. My maids gave me a natural look. They gave me loose curls and light makeup with pink lipstick and a gloss coating. They were done about an hour later, with only doing touch ups to my hair and face. 

I put my earrings in to complete the look. I looked at myself in the mirror. My maids were right. I did look stunning. It's a simple yet elegant look.

"That should do it Miss America. If anything need fixing before the party, please tell us." Anne explained.

"Thank you May, Lucy, and Anne. You all my leave." I replied. My maids left and soon, I left to go back to the Great Room to see how things are finishing up on preparation.

I entered the Great Room and a lot of things have been placed since I've been gone for about an hour and a half. Almost everything was there except for the snacks and refreshments.

I was told by a butler this morning when we started planning that the snacks and refreshments would be placed while we have dinner in the Dining Hall.

Celeste arrived when I was about to leave to go see Princess Nicoletta arrive.

"Wow Celeste!" I started to say. "For once, you really didn't go over the top!"

"Your lucky I don't hate you anymore, because if I did, I would talk smack to you." she replied by flipping her hair.

"Well, Princess Nicoletta arrives in about 10 minutes. August and Georgia will arrive after diner during the party in this room." I explained.

"Okay, so when do we need to talk about... you know who?" Celeste asked cautiously.

"Well," I started to explain. "I was told this morning at breakfast by Queen Amberly that the press would be here for the party. Talking about you know who during the party could be really dangerous. We could just lie and leave the party for a bit or just meet up in one of our rooms tonight." 

"Okay. Well, let's go. We have to greet Nicoletta along with the Royal Family and Kriss. The press will be there, so we have to act all happy." We walked outside towards the front of the Palace and we are greeted by cameras flashing along with the Royal Family and Kriss walking outside.

"Princess Nicoletta isn't even here yet and they're already taking pictures." Celeste whispered in my ear.

"The Royal Family and Kriss just came out, that's why." I explained.

"Here comes Princess Nicoletta now." Celeste said then put her attention back on the limo coming in.

Nicoletta stepped out of the limo and even more cameras went off. Nicoletta first greeted the Royal Family, then Kriss, then Celeste, and then me.

"Hello Lady America! It's a pleasure meeting you again." Nicoletta greeted.

"It's a pleasure to meet you as well." I said back then we embraced embraced. We all walked back in the palace to start dinner.  

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I dedicated this chapter to WeirdSillyJustMe  because she's the writer who won my ship name contest for this story! We will do 1 collab chapter after Chapter 13. can't wait to hear the feedback from you guys on the collab chapter we do!

The top photo is America's dress. It's from Google when I searched 'white and gold ballgown'. Celeste's dress will be in the next chapter. For some reason, I couldn't include the picture of her dress in this chapter.