Memories II

|27| • Doing the Impossible •

After our breakfast with the band and the entire entourage, we returned to our room to get ready for the spa day that Brian had in mind for us. But while we did, we discussed Freddie's little remark. Getting married in May, we simply had to do that. You couldn't be called May and then not marry in May. The only problem was, May was soon. Very soon, three months away. Could you plan a wedding in three months?

It was definitely ambitious, but... we agreed we didn't want to wait until the following May, if we didn't have to, so we would try. It was ambitious especially because they were on tour for most of May, but Brian told me he wanted to go on that tour as a married man and I wanted to make that happen, because that would mean I could join him for most of it.

Before we went downstairs to the spa, we called Brian's parents. To say they were excited would be an understatement, especially Ruth was overjoyed. We mentioned the plan for a May wedding just casually, but Ruth loved the idea and promised me she'd get on it. She would start looking for locations and make appointments for me to go dress shopping. That was when Brian left me to talk with his mother for a few minutes so I could give her a rough overview over my ideas. I didn't have very many, but I managed to say no to a lot of her suggestions. I didn't want anything fancy, I just wanted to marry Brian. That itself was fancy enough.

For most of the day, getting married was all Brian and I could talk about. We agreed, luckily, on most things. Small, and just the closest friends and family. In a registry office, and then somewhere nice for a meal afterwards. Maybe it wasn't exactly a fairytale wedding, but Brian wanted me to think about what kind of wedding I wanted and I wanted something small. Small, and beautiful.

Just like our Valentine's Day, it was nothing pompous. It was a wonderful day, just the two of us, relaxing, talking, reconnecting. We decided that I would go home by the end of February to give me a bit of a headstart on the wedding, as soon as possible. Maybe headstart was the wrong word. Get caught up on what Ruth was doing because whenever we talked, she let it show through that she was getting a lot of things done. I had a few appointments to try wedding dresses and visit locations for dinner on our wedding day and something told me Ruth wasn't going to let me have it quite as simple as I wanted it to be.

Saying goodbye to Brian at the end of February wasn't easy. I had three weeks without him, but after an entire month of being with him, and something wonderful to look forward to, it was easier than it might have been. The flight was horrible again, but I made it. I had gotten so used to travelling with the band that eight hours alone on the plane turned out to be incredibly dull. But the wonderful thing was that Ruth came to meet me at the airport. And not just that, she insisted that I stayed with her and Harold for the night. It was the first time I was staying there without Brian, which I thought would be weird, but it wasn't. It was wonderful, it felt like being with family. Which was wonderful, because that was what Ruth and Harold were. Family.

Coming back to London after a month of travelling through North America felt surreal. No more flying every day or every other day, no more hotels, no more Brian. Just back to work, back to normal. Well, almost normal. Because I spent a lot of time with Ruth. And after I had told her about what had happened, I told Annie as well. Of course I had to tell her as one of the first people. Because I asked her to be my maid of honour, of course I did. Because she was one of my closest friends, and without her there most likely wouldn't be a May wedding in May to go to.

And she was excited. Maybe she was even the most excited about the wedding, she and Ruth were very much into it. And they convinced me to include my parents in the planning. Specifically my mother. I didn't want her to be involved in the planning, but I gave in, because I was tired of fighting. Luckily my parents didn't live in London, which meant my mother could only meddle so much. It was still mostly Annie and Ruth, and a little bit me. We found a beautiful little barn that held wedding receptions, just outside Guildford in the countryside. I hadn't wanted anything big, but it was impossible not to fall in love with that little place.

So when Brian came back from the tour, I dragged him out there with me to have a look at the location. He was still jetlagged and exhausted from the tour, but I could tell he genuinely liked it too. And he was looking forward to the wedding, as much as I was. Not to the celebration afterwards, but to the fact that we would be celebrating as a married couple. So we booked it, and we arranged for catering, and then we invited people. It was surreal, sending out invitations to our wedding.

It was all coming into place, slowly but surely. Brian was busy with the band, they were working, preparing the second leg of the tour, while I was busy, working, only part-time at this point. Preparing the wedding in such short time took a lot of attention and time, and effort. But we would be getting married on May 1st. And then, as a sort of honeymoon, I would be joining them on tour around Europe, and then the UK. It was only a short tour that they had planned, because it had been a while since they had toured the continent. A longer tour with more dates would have been risky, as Brian explained to me, with potentially lower ticket sales and no one wanted to play for a half-empty venue. They needn't have worried though, their show in Rotterdam sold out faster than it seemed possible, it were literally only minutes.

And hearing that made me so proud. How could I not be? He was simply fantastic, and I was so proud of what he was accomplishing. The press could bash them all they wanted, but that didn't change the facts, they were brilliant. Absolutely brilliant, doing their thing.

I had gotten used to what was being said in the press, about them, and occasionally about me. Albeit rarely. I wasn't a fan of it, but it was okay. The one thing I disliked most about those press articles was that it gave my parents - my mother - material. My father was fine. He really somehow was. He came down to London, he surprised both Brian and me, once again we had just been sitting on the couch, eating dinner, when there had been a knock on the door.

It had been him, my father, and he had apologised. Not just to me, but to Brian. And he seemed sincere. He apologised for my mother, but also told me she hadn't changed her opinion. She still didn't like Brian, only his bank account. He thought it was embarrassing the way she bragged to everyone who her daughter was going out with, and he realised how foolish it was to brag about something that they had nothing to do with.

I had been suspicious, very suspicious, and so had Brian, but we were convinced in the end. He was going to walk me down the aisle, so truly, the wedding was slowly but surely all coming together. We had everything we needed. We would manage to make this wedding work, we would be getting married on May 1st and I was excited.