Jake's POV
When I wake up, my arm subconsciously goes to reach across the bed and pull Amy closer to me but I'm greeted by an empty space. I look over to Gabi's cot which is also empty and assume they're already awake. Barely audible from upstairs, I can hear Kate and Amy talking from downstairs.
In the kitchen, Amy is attempting to flip pancakes and by looking at the many broken or folded ones on a plate is proving to be unsuccessful. Gabi is sat in her high chair with Kate next to her with banana all around her face, down her bib and across the plastic attachable table - there's even some around Kate's mouth. Amy and I started to try Gabi and soft solids at the start of the year and so far she's loved all of the fruits we've offered her, clearly not taking after my eating habits.
Once Gabi sees me walk into the room she throws her arms in the air, some banana falling on the floor and some landing on Kate. I laugh at the mess breakfast has become, crouching down to look at Gabi eye-level and ending up with banana smushed all over my face. With banana across my face, I wrap my arms around Amy and deliberately, just to spread the banana, place a kiss on her cheek.
"You're lucky I love you." She says laughing at me before placing, not the most amazing, pancakes on the table.
The three of us sit at the table talking, Gabi gurgling along happily. Amy convinces me to spend the day making the wedding binder with her, now we've come up with a month. Kate decides to look around the city and try to find a job, despite Amy and I insisting she doesn't need to worry financially.
3months later and Kate has a job at the coffee shop a couple of blocks away from our house, Amy and I have a date and venue in place for our wedding and Gabi is pulling herself up on all the furniture around the house, trying to take her first steps. There's a guest list of around 100people lying on the coffee table and lists of potential photographers next to it.
"Jake, this is our only free Saturday this month and it's the year-until-our-wedding month, so there's a list of decisions we need to make together by the end of today." Amy says, sitting on the couch next to me with her huge wedding binder and only slightly small sub-section binders scattered around the room.
Kate took Gabi out to the zoo for the day, wanting to have some bonding time with her and also allowing Amy and I to get our heads down for the day. The first binder Amy pulls up is the wedding guest binder: she has a list on a piece of paper, but this binder has a system on how to decide who to invite, 'pros and cons' about each guest party and who strictly cannot sit next to one another.
"Once we've got the list of guests, we can send out the save the dates if we finish early today and have them ticked off next months list. They grow each month."
"They continue growing, wow I can't wait to see the week-of-binder." I say, a grin on my face.
"I'm serious Jake, there's a lot to do and we need to be productive, which I know is not your strong suit but I'm hoping I can influence you." Amy says, slapping me across the arm gently and trying to hold back a laugh.
It takes us three hours, but eventually the guest list has all of those we want to invite on it, and we're convinced we haven't left anyone out. It consists of our parents, Amy's 7brothers (and their partners and children), Kate, the 'inner circle' from work (again with their partners and children), our aunts and uncles, cousins and friends who are not our colleagues. The list finally totals out to 117, but that includes at least 20 children 'bringing catering costs down significantly' as Amy said.
"Now that's done, we can sit on the couch for the rest of the day and watch movies." I tempt, a grin on my face.
"Jake don't sweet-talk me with a day of nothing, we've got work to do."
"I know I'm teasing." I say placing a kiss on her cheek and picking up some wedding photographer leaflets.
"Now with our blush pink and dusty blue colour scheme, that cuts us down to these five photographers by looking at their pamphlets. We just need to do a detailed pros and cons list for each of them and we should get our wedding photographer."
I stare at Amy in awe, admiring how thorough her planning is and how happy she looks, the biggest smile of her face as she gets five pieces of paper and draws up tables on each of them.
We begin by writing information from the leaflets into each table, as to which would benefit us, our colour scheme, venue, guest number and season the most, then we look at reviews online.
After multiple cups of coffee, small disagreements and many new tables we finally decide on the photographer we want to use. The company send two photographers for the day and have one with each of us whilst getting ready, then at opposite ends of the isle during the ceremony, they then both take the staged photos we request and then they stay during the reception and into the evening capturing people in the moment. Their editing of the photos compliment our colour scheme and they've been shown to work well both indoors and outdoors (indoors for the ceremony and in the gazebo for the reception).
"Well we've finished early, so we can cuddle on the couch and watch a movie?" I hint with a smile.
"How about this, I'll use my label maker to print the labels and you can stick the labels and place the save the date cards in the envelope. And we can have Die Hard on." Amy barters.
I agree and it takes us two hours to get all the cards in envelopes ready to be sent off or handed out to their respective people. When we're finished, the binders get put away and just as we're getting comfortable on the couch, the door opens and Kate walks in with a sleeping Gabi.
Amy takes Gabi, feeding her and putting her upstairs in her cot for her afternoon nap, then the three of us sit downstairs talking. Kate looks happier than she did last time she came to visit and a sense of relief washes over me as I watch her laugh with Amy, knowing her past life has been left behind.
That night in bed, Amy lies with her head on my shoulder, the both of us in a comfortable silence. Gabi has just finished hysterically crying because her first upper teeth were coming through and we realise we are going to have a couple of very disturbed nights, as we did when her first two bottom teeth came through. With a slightly frozen teething relief toy in her mouth and a smothering of kisses and hugs off Amy and I she finally fell back asleep.
"I'd like Kate to be one of my bridesmaids, as long as that's okay with you." Amy speaks, breaking the silence.
"Really? That would be great, amazing." I reply, placing a kiss of her head.
"Do you know what else is going to be amazing?" She asks to which I hum "We've got our first catering tasters on Wednesday afternoon so we have a half day and, as long as she's not in too much pain, Gabi's coming with us so we get to spend more time with her.
"I love you."
"I love you more."
{I'm getting back into the flow of writing again... it's only took me about 3months. A couple of questions if you could help me with please:
- who would you like to see as Amy's bridesmaids?
- who should be Amy's maid of honor?
(and a bit of a more random question, but if I like the idea I have may be relevant in later chapters)
- should Rosa be dating someone... if so who?
Any feedback will be really appreciated as always and I honestly feel so bad for leaving this book for so long because the amount of reads have dropped significantly, but I'll keep updating whilst I'm getting ideas.
Thank you for reading}
