30. Saying I Do
SAYING "I DO"
The wedding morning starts before the sun has even decided if it wants to show up. I’m sitting on a stool in front of a mirror while Hazel and Destiny move around the room with purpose—opening garment bags, checking lists, adjusting the playlist like it’s a life-or-death situation.
My stomach has been in a tight knot since I opened my eyes. Not panic—just the sharp awareness that today is the line between the life I’ve known and whatever comes after. My dress hangs on the closet door, the fabric catching the soft yellow light from the lamp. I don’t let myself touch it yet.
I’m afraid if I do, everything will become too real too fast. Hazel keeps giving me small smiles like she can see every thought running through my head. Destiny keeps telling me to breathe every time she passes behind me, even though she pretends she’s not paying attention.
Liam barrels into the room a little after seven, half-dressed and holding a toy truck. Mom trails behind him with a comb in one hand and exasperation in her voice. “He will not sit still,” she says. “I’m giving him five more minutes before I bribe him with fruit snacks.”
He climbs into my lap without permission.
His tiny suit pants are already wrinkled, and his hair is sticking in three different directions, but none of it bothers me.
His weight settles something inside me that’s been shaky all morning.
“Mama,” he says, pressing his forehead against my chest. “You look pretty.”
“I’m not even in the dress yet,” I say, but the compliment hits hard. Liam doesn’t care about weddings or ceremonies. He cares that I’m here, holding him, part of our small world that’s about to grow again.
Mom finally gets him dressed and steals him away before he can spill juice on everything. The room quiets for a few minutes, giving me space to notice the way my hands won’t stop trembling. Hazel notices too. She sets a hand on my shoulder. “Nervous?” she asks.
“Yeah,” I say. “In a good way. I think.”
“That’s normal,” she replies. “Getting married isn’t just romance. It’s a structural shift. It changes how you fit in your own life.”
Destiny snorts. “She means your brain is short-circuiting because you’re doing something permanent.”
I laugh, which helps. The tension loosens enough for me to breathe again.
When they help me into the dress, everything quiets.
Hazel zips the back slowly while Destiny smooths the skirt, making sure every line falls right.
I look at myself in the mirror and need a moment to adjust. I look like someone older, steadier. Someone making a deliberate choice.
Mom steps in as I’m fixing my earrings. Her eyes go soft the moment she sees me. She covers her mouth for a second before she speaks. “You look beautiful,” she whispers. “You really do.”
Her voice carries everything—love, pride, fear, and the grief of watching your child step into adulthood again.
She hugs me tightly. It steadies me more than anything else has.
The drive to the venue feels unreal. Hazel talks to keep me grounded—small things, details about the reception, reminders not to trip on the aisle runner.
But I keep drifting. Every street we pass feels like a countdown. My pulse climbs with every turn.
When we arrive, the wedding coordinator guides us through the side entrance. Voices echo from the main hall—Reid’s family greeting ours, kids running around, chairs shuffling. It feels too big and too loud until someone opens the door to the small room where Liam is waiting with the ring box.
He stands and lifts it proudly. “Mama,” he says, “this is my job.”
The simplicity of it hits me harder than the dress or the flowers or any of the planning. This tiny boy, who changed my entire life, is part of this moment too. Part of the future Reid and I keep trying to build even when it scares us.
When the music starts, my heart stumbles. Hazel squeezes my hand before the coordinator signals me forward. The doors open, and the room expands around me. People rise from their seats. Colors blur. All of it fades when I find Reid at the end of the aisle.
He looks both steady and nervous—hands shaking slightly, jaw tight, eyes locked on me like I’m the only person in the room. I feel my breath catch. Not because I doubt anything, but because the sight of him waiting for me is its own quiet shock.
Mom walks with me, holding my hand the same way she did when I was small. When she passes my hand into Reid’s, I see the flicker of fear she’s been carrying all year. But she steps back with a nod, choosing to trust me even if she still has doubts.
Reid takes my hands. His palms are warm, slightly damp. “Hi,” he whispers.
“Hi,” I whisper back.
The officiant starts talking, but most of it washes out. I hear pieces—commitment, partnership, choosing each other even when it’s hard. My focus stays on Reid’s eyes. They aren’t full of certainty. They’re full of effort. Intention. Hope. It’s more honest than any perfect fairytale picture.
He reads his vow first. It’s short, steady, heartfelt.
Not flowery, not scripted. Just him promising to show up, to grow with me, to do the work even when life gets messy.
Mine is similar—simple words anchored in truth.
I don’t promise perfection. I promise presence.
When the officiant asks if I take him as my husband, the answer comes without hesitation.
“I do.”
His follows just as quickly. The kiss isn’t dramatic.
It’s warm and careful, like we’re sealing something fragile and important.
When we turn to the room as husband and wife, I feel the shift.
Not a rush of magic. A grounding. A quiet awareness that we’ve stepped into something bigger than either of us can fully see.
We walk back down the aisle together. Liam cheers louder than anyone.
And for a moment, the fear settles enough for joy to take the front seat.
The ceremony dissolves into a warm blur of movement—hands tugging me toward the aisle exit, flashes from phones, the swell of applause that seems too big for the space around us.
Someone hands me my bouquet again. Someone else hugs me. I lose track of who says what because all I can feel is Reid’s fingers laced through mine like he’s afraid someone might pry us apart.
The reception hall glows under soft lights.
Hazel insisted on installing “mood-appropriate lighting,” which apparently means warm gold and enough candles to concern a fire marshal.
It’s beautiful. It’s overwhelming. It feels like walking into a room full of every decision we’ve made over the past three years, arranged neatly on tables with linen tablecloths.
Reid squeezes my hand. “Ready?”
“No,” I say. “But I’m here.”
“That counts,” he says quietly.
Then the music starts, and we’re ushered into our first dance before I really process it.
His hands settle on my waist—steady, warm, familiar—and my shoulders drop without my permission.
He moves with a gentle confidence I haven’t seen in weeks, like everything that’s been weighing him down finally loosened its grip.
“This feels surreal,” he murmurs.
“Good surreal?” I ask.
He leans his forehead to mine. “The best kind.”
We sway, slow and unhurried. People around us watch with soft smiles, but the world narrows down to his breath against my cheek and the steady slide of his fingers at my hip. My chest feels too full and too tight at the same time—love expanding, nerves contracting. A perfect contradiction.
When the dance ends, the room erupts into noise.
Toasts start. Hazel’s is loud and chaotic because she refuses to cry in public, so she masks every emotional line with a joke.
Destiny’s is short and quietly sincere—her version of handing me her heart without saying the words directly.
Iris’s is tearful and dramatic, but no one is surprised.
Reid’s family takes their turns too. His mom presses her hand over her mouth halfway through her speech, trying not to sob into the microphone.
His dad claps Reid on the shoulder when it’s over, pride written on every line of his face.
Logan makes a joke about “joining the married-people club,” and Nathan yells something supportive about diapers and taxes that makes the entire room laugh.
I catch my mom watching me from a table near the front—not unhappy, not tense, just… thoughtful. It’s the same expression she wore when I drove off to college, pretending not to cry. The expression she wore the first time she held Liam. A look shaped by love and fear in equal measure.
Dinner happens. Cake happens. Liam runs around with a cupcake face and two cousins chasing him like he’s carrying national secrets. I keep watching him, unable to stop. He looks so small in his tiny suit, clutching a plastic dinosaur he apparently smuggled into the wedding party.
At one point he barrels straight toward us, arms up. Reid bends down and lifts him without hesitation. Liam grabs both sides of Reid’s face, smushing his cheeks.
“Dada married,” he says proudly.
Reid laughs—real and soft and unguarded. “Yeah, buddy. I did.”
When Liam reaches for me next, I tuck him against my side. For a brief, startling moment, standing there with both of them, I feel the shape of the future I want. Chaotic. Hard. Messy. Ours.
Hours pass, though it feels like minutes. Guests begin to leave. The lights dim even further. The exhaustion hits in waves—relief mixed with gratitude mixed with the kind of bone-deep tiredness that comes from holding too many emotions at once.
Reid finds me near the exit. “You ready?”
“Yes,” I say. “God, yes.”