The air in the bridal suite was thick with the scent of expensive hairspray and lilies. I sat perched on the edge of a vanity chair, my white silk robe shimmering under the fluorescent lights. I was halfway through my makeup—one eye perfectly winged, the other bare—when the door clicked shut.
“Baby… don’t panic, but Jeff’s not here,” my mom whispered. She looked like she’d seen a ghost.
“What do you mean not here?!” I asked, my heart hammering against my ribs. I dropped my blending sponge; it hit the floor with a dull thud.
“I mean… they’re not here. NONE of them.”
I grabbed Mom’s phone with shaking hands. I called Jeff. Straight to voicemail. I called his brother, the best man. On the fourth ring, he picked up, his voice frantic and distorted by wind.
“Rosie?! WHERE ARE YOU?!” he shouted. “Everyone is looking for you! Jeff’s about to cancel the wedding!”
The room tilted. I could barely breathe. “What are you talking about, Mike? I’m at the Rose Garden Pavilion! I’ve been here since 6:00 AM!”
“The Rose Garden?” Mike’s voice dropped to a terrifying whisper. “Rosie… we’re at the St. Jude’s Chapel across the county. Your mom told us the venue changed last night because of a ‘plumbing emergency.’ She said you were already there.”
Suddenly, it all clicked. My darling Mother-in-Law, Evelyn. She had hated the Rose Garden from the second I picked it. She wanted a “traditional” church wedding. She had spent months trying to move the venue, and when I finally stood my ground, she’d gone silent.
Too silent.
“PUT HER ON NOW!” I roared into the phone. “PUT EVELYN ON THE PHONE AND FIND OUT WHERE THE HELL SHE IS!”
There was a muffled scuffle on the other end, then a cool, composed voice floated through the receiver.
“Now, Rosie, dear,” Evelyn said, her tone dripping with fake sympathy. “There’s no need for hysterics. St. Jude’s is lovely this time of year. Since you couldn’t be bothered to show up to your own wedding, Jeff is obviously devastated. He thinks you’ve got cold feet. I’m just trying to comfort him.”
“You lied to them, Evelyn,” I hissed, my voice trembling with a mixture of rage and adrenaline. “You told them the venue changed. You sent the entire groom’s party forty miles away.”
“I did what was best for the family,” she replied smoothly. “And since you aren’t here, and the guests are waiting… perhaps it’s for the best. If you really loved him, you’d be where the altar is.”
She hung up.
I looked at my reflection. One eye done, one eye not. A white robe. Forty miles of highway between me and the man I loved.
“Mom,” I said, my voice deathly calm. “Hand me my dress. And call your cousin Vinnie. The one with the Ducati.”
Ten minutes later, I wasn’t a blushing bride; I was a woman on a mission. I didn’t have time for the limo. Vinnie pulled up to the curb of the Rose Garden in a roar of black metal and exhaust.
“You’re gonna ruin the dress, Rosie!” my mom wailed.
“I’ll buy a new one!” I yelled back, hiking up layers of tulle and silk, stuffing them into my lap as I climbed onto the back of the bike. I wrapped my arms around Vinnie’s leather jacket. “Drive. Fast.”
The 40-mile trek was a blur of wind and white fabric. People on the freeway took videos as a bride in a full ballgown streaked past them at eighty miles per hour. My veil whipped behind me like a battle flag. By the time we pulled into the gravel lot of St. Jude’s, my hair was a bird’s nest and my makeup was smeared with road grit.
I didn’t care.
I burst through the heavy oak doors of the chapel just as the organist began a somber, low tune. Jeff was standing at the altar, his head in his hands. Evelyn stood beside him, her hand on his shoulder, whispering in his ear—likely telling him I had run off with an ex.
The “thud” of the doors echoing against the stone walls made everyone turn.
“I’M HERE!” I screamed, gasping for air.
The silence that followed was deafening. Jeff looked up, his eyes widening. He saw the disheveled hair, the dirt on the hem of my $5,000 gown, and the sheer fury in my eyes.
“Rosie?” he breathed, stepping forward.
Evelyn stepped in front of him, her face a mask of horror. “Look at you! You’re a mess! You’ve embarrassed us all, turning up like this—”
“Move, Evelyn,” Jeff said. His voice wasn’t loud, but it had a sharp edge I’d never heard before.
“Jeff, darling, she’s clearly unstable—”
“I said MOVE.”
Jeff pushed past his mother. He reached me in four strides, catching me as my legs finally gave out from the adrenaline crash.
“She told us the Rose Garden flooded,” Jeff whispered into my hair. “She said you were waiting for us here.”
“She lied, Jeff,” I sobbed into his tuxedo. “She tried to steal our day.”
Jeff turned around to face the congregation. He looked at his mother, who was clutching her pearls, trying to summon tears of her own.
“Mom,” Jeff said, his voice carrying to the back of the room. “You have exactly sixty seconds to leave this building. If you’re still here when I count to sixty, you won’t be in our lives. Ever.”
Evelyn opened her mouth to protest, saw the look on her son’s face, and realized she had finally played her last card. She gathered her handbag and scurried down the side aisle, the clicking of her heels the only sound in the church.
Jeff turned back to me. He took his pocket square and gently wiped a smudge of road grease from my cheek.
“You look beautiful,” he whispered.
“I look like a highway accident,” I laughed through my tears.
“My favorite kind of accident.” He looked at the priest. “We aren’t doing the traditional vows. Just get us to the ‘I do’ part. We’ve had enough travel for one day.”
We got married right then and there. My hair was a mess, the venue was wrong, and the mother of the groom was somewhere on the I-95 heading home in disgrace. But as Jeff kissed me, I knew one thing for sure:
The next time Evelyn invited us for dinner, we’d be “checking the venue” first.
