Chapter 1 #2
He sat back and listened to his fellow event planners talk about their projects.
No two weeks were the same in this business.
People came to them for the special and exotic and because of that, they had a huge network of people they worked with.
Suppliers ranged from animal handlers to the sort of creatives who could design props, if the budget was big enough.
It really was incredible. The difference between planning weddings and doing corporate events, which he’d done before, blew his mind on a daily basis.
‘We’ve had an interesting request – with a big budget. A couple want to get married in Sri Lanka,’ said Grant.
Sampath sat a little straighter. So did a few of the others. Landing an event with a big budget would be good for his portfolio. He could prove himself in this company. Besides, events with big budgets were always more fun.
‘Let’s see. They want to … have a wedding that embraces the culture and the aesthetic …
a lot of photos and videos for socials. Both bride and groom are writers, so they’d like some promotional shots of their books as well.
Food, elephants, traditional ceremony … Provisional wedding date in eighteen months.
Research trip planned for three months’ time. ’
Wow. That sounded great. A research trip meant they didn’t fully know what they wanted yet, but were willing to spend quite a lot of money to figure it out.
That did sound like a big budget. He wondered who this writer was.
As far as he knew, very few writers earned that kind of money, so this must be someone who was really famous.
He cleared his throat. ‘I’m half Sri Lankan.’
Grant eyed him thoughtfully. ‘Do you speak the language?’
‘I speak one of the languages,’ Sampath said. ‘I don’t speak Tamil, but I can get by in Sinhala.’
Grant frowned. ‘I’m not sure which one they need.
You’ll have to find out. We have no contacts at all over there, but it would be a good thing to add to the portfolio – bespoke weddings in Sri Lanka could be something we offer in the future, if we can put together a package for it.
We already offer a basic beach wedding in Sri Lanka but being able to offer more interesting variations – like book- or reading-themed ones – would be even better.
We already offer some interesting alternative weddings here.
It would be nice to extend that to the destination wedding crowd as well.
’ He looked back at his tablet. ‘I think this is a good opportunity for you to go over there with them, scope out what they want, make some contacts, build a relationship with a local fixer … that sort of thing. You up for that?’
‘Yes. Absolutely.’ Of course he was up for that.
He hadn’t been back to Sri Lanka since he was a child.
He had lived there for two years while his parents worked on a contract.
They had been very keen for him and his sister to learn to speak Sinhala, and sent him off to join clubs and societies, even though his mother took care of their education by homeschooling them.
More importantly, the fact that Grant was trusting him with something this big was a great thing.
He’d only been working there for a year and felt he still hadn’t proven himself.
A bespoke wedding with a big budget, which also allowed him to expand the company’s offerings, might just be the chance he’d been waiting for.
‘Excellent.’ Grant slid a document over to him. ‘Here are some further details. Melody will email you the rest.’
***
A few minutes later, he finally got the chance to open the folder and find out more. The couple were … Marcus Lloyd-Howell and … Kalpana Jayathilake.
He stared at the name.
Surely, there couldn’t be that many people called Kalpana who were also writers. He pulled up Google and looked up Kalpana Jay and the name Jayathilake. Several pennies dropped at once.
This was Kalpana Jay. She used a shortened form of her surname for her books.
One of the photos that came up in the search was her author photo – which he’d seen many, many times in the back of the books.
No wonder she had looked familiar when he’d met her on the train.
He had been talking to Kalpana Jay and he hadn’t even realised.
For a second, he felt something akin to panic. What had he said to her? They’d talked about her books. Had he said anything stupid? His face felt like it was on fire. He rubbed it. He really, really hoped he hadn’t said anything idiotic to her.
He couldn’t be certain, but he was fairly sure he had only fanboyed about her books in a good way and not humiliated himself. God, he hoped so. He let out a long breath and looked up Marcus Lloyd-Howell. Kalpana Jay’s fiancé.
Even Sampath, who tended to read mostly commercial fiction, recognised the literary essayist. Some sort of prize nomination, if he recalled.
Ah yes. The Pulitzer for his book Reflections.
Nice. The first few search pages were about the books.
It took a little bit more digging to find out where all the money came from.
The Lloyd-Howell family owned a shipping company, among other things.
He came from generations of wealth. His mother was an American heiress.
Born in America. Private school, Eton, Yale …
then a sort of literary lifestyle that you really needed to be independently wealthy to manage.
That was the groom. No wonder they wanted the best of everything.
He thought back to the woman on the train. She had been beautiful and well put together, but there hadn’t been anything arrogant about her. She had seemed so … normal. She hadn’t even told him that she’d written the book he’d been looking at with such longing.
He found a photo of the couple together and zoomed in.
Despite what most people assumed when they saw his flamboyant taste in clothes, Sampath was straight, but even he had to admit that Marcus was very handsome – well-groomed with a roguish smile.
Next to him, Kalpana looked delicate and angelic, her glossy dark hair and brown skin a contrast to his blond-haired, blue-eyed charm.
They were an astonishingly good-looking couple.
Photographers would be clamouring to work with them.
Sampath smiled. Planning a wedding for them was going to be a joy.