Chapter 18
At the end of the following week, a mainstream wedding magazine comes to Blossom Park to do a major feature and photo shoot.
The feature they’d originally scheduled for an upcoming issue fell through, so we became their last-minute replacement. The theme and concept will be choosing the particular spot in Blossom Park to hold our wedding ceremony, so we get to show off all the beautiful, unique wedding settings we offer.
Nature must be on our side because the day dawns clear and fresh with a vivid blue sky, aesthetically fluffy clouds, and bright sunshine highlighting the blooming flowers all over the various gardens.
Once again, a lot of thought and planning goes into my outfits—I have four and will change into them throughout the photo shoot. Even Wes has to put up with directions about his clothes, although he ends up in tailored trousers with four different sweater-vests, so he looks basically normal.
We start in the rose garden, where we staged the proposal. There are so many people around and so many cameras and people calling out directions that I can barely think. I mindlessly do what I’m told, arranging my body as I’m instructed.
Wes appears slightly impatient with the commotion, but he’s playing along. Of course he is.
This is what we’ve always wanted.
One of the best things that can happen to a wedding-event venue is to be featured in a national magazine like this.
I don’t like the process any more than Wes does, but we’re both going through it without a word of complaint.
I’m wearing one of Aunt Grace’s dresses—this one is a gorgeous dark rose color with a layered skirt and thick sundress straps—and the top layer of my hair is pulled back in a stylized braid. I felt pretty when I first got dressed, but now I’m getting hot and tired.
And it’s still the first area and outfit.
Wes and I obediently arrange ourselves in pose after pose. We’ve been getting along pretty well for the past days because we’re both pretending the interrupted kiss in the car never happened.
But we haven’t been close. Not like we were that evening.
So we’ve been just a little stiff with each other today. Until, after several minutes of shots the photographer isn’t happy about, Wes starts murmuring dry comments.
As we’re gazing at each other adoringly, he says without moving his lips, “If that man doesn’t stop telling me to manufacture a dreamy expression, I’m going to lose it.”
As we’re sitting on one of the stone benches together, he says through his teeth, “I think the assistant hates the photographer.”
And as we’re holding an almost-kiss in front of the roses, he asks, “Do people really go for this kind of thing?”
Like at the restaurant last week, once I get tickled, I can’t seem to stop.
I have to fight not to giggle in response to each of his comments.
For the next shoot, I wear a sky-blue dress and my hair in a loose braid. This one is staged in the wedding gazebo.
This time I tell Wes firmly that he isn’t to make me laugh because I don’t want to get in trouble with all these very serious people from the magazine. Or with Natalie, who arranged the whole thing and is hovering with deep intensity.
So Wes is silent the whole time, but I can see the dry comments he isn’t making in his eyes and his expression. So I keep wanting to giggle anyway.
Finally I do, falling out of our swoony, romantic pose in a burst of helpless laughter.
“This is entirely inappropriate,” Wes says with an impressively disapproving expression.
I give him a playful swat on the chest. “It’s all your fault!”
“Why is it my fault?”
“Because you’re making me laugh with your eyes.” I’m half aware of the photographer snapping photos of our silly altercation, but I’m more aware of the fond warmth on Wes’s face.
“You’re imagining things.”
“I am not. You’re doing it on purpose. Admit it!”
He finally falls into laughter too, bringing me close in a loose, one-armed hug before he seems to remember we have an audience. “I admit nothing,” he says into my hair.
I’m flushed and happy and a little embarrassed as I pull away from him.
“Don’t stop,” the photographer says. I haven’t seen him smile once all day. “This is good stuff.”
We move to the platform by the duck pond next and then to the wildflower fields. I wear the same red-and-orange floral dress with cap sleeves for both.
We wrap up in the English garden with me in pale pink and Wes in gray trousers, a blue Oxford, and a blue-and-gray sweater-vest.
It’s been a strange day, and it feels like I keep shifting from a weirdly stressed flurry to heights of warm amusement.
They have us walk toward each other on the main path of the landscaped garden with its flowers in various shades of pink and its sculpted trees and classic columns and statuary.
It’s not one of the normal places we host weddings, but it’s always been my favorite garden.
And there’s something incredibly poignant about how we move toward each other amid the flowers and foliage. I don’t know why it gets to me, but it does.
If swooning had a feeling in my chest, it’s this.
It’s exactly this.
When we reach each other, we hold the pose for a while.
Then the photographer says, “Go ahead and kiss.”
Wes and I stare at each other. His hand is on my waist, and one of mine is on his shoulder.
“Is it okay?” I ask at last, soft so only he can hear. “We’re not supposed to.”
“Y-yeah. Sure. It’s fine with me if it’s fine with you.”
I gulp. “It is.”
“Okay.”
“Okay.” I wait. Then, “So do it.”
“I am.”
“Do it now.”
“You can do it too, you know.”
Flustered and jittery, I reach up to his head with a huff and pull it down toward mine. When our lips meet, there’s a moment of profound weirdness.
Here I am.
Kissing Wes in the English garden.
In front of half my family and the entire world.
But his mouth gradually softens, and then his body does. He makes a sound in his throat that really does it for me.
I relax against him and give myself over to the kiss.
Because it’s good. It’s really good.
It’s not the same as that kiss by the SUV after the musical in DC, but it’s still better than almost everything else I’ve ever done in my life.
We must be putting on a good show. They’re calling out encouragement and asking us to keep it up.
After a minute Wes leans farther down, taking me with him until my back is arched and I’m held up primarily by the strength of his arms.
The move gets of a whoop of excitement from the audience, and I’m breathless and laughing a little when he finally straightens us up and we pull apart. My cheeks are flaming, and my lips feel slightly swollen.
“There,” Wes said. “I told you I could do it.”
What can I say?
He did indeed do it.
We have a late lunch when all the photographing is over—sandwiches and fruit on the picnic tables—and the feature writer interviews us for the story.
Most of it is easy. We’ve planned and rehearsed our answers repeatedly, and none of the questions are surprising or challenging.
This is a puff piece after all. Mostly done to show off Blossom Park and feature gorgeous photographs in the magazine.
So we answer her questions about our backgrounds, the progress of our relationship, and how we’ve been dealing with the notoriety of going viral. The answers come easily, without any trouble, because we stick as close to the truth as we can.
The only time we hesitate is when she’s wrapping up. “What would you say to the people who are skeptical about this engagement? Who think you’re doing it just for show?”
Wes nods toward me, letting me answer since our plans designated who was going to answer different kinds of questions.
I follow Natalie’s advice and lower my eyes as if I’m feeling shy, which gives me a minute to compose a convincing answer when the words don’t immediately come.
I’m flushed again, but that’s normal for me, and it will look natural given the situation and the particular question.
“I don’t blame them,” I say at last. “It’s easy to assume everything on social media is staged since so much of it is.
If people don’t believe we’re in love, that’s okay.
Sometimes I don’t believe it myself. It feels like a miracle.
That here is this guy I’ve known all my life, and then one day I wake up and realize he’s so much more than that.
He’s… everything. I can understand that it’s unbelievable because it’s unbelievable to me too. ”
Natalie has been lurking in the background, and she gives me a pleased, silent nod, so I know I did a good job.
“Just so it’s clear,” Wes adds with a twitch of a smile. “She’s been oblivious all this time, but I haven’t been. I’ve been waiting for her to open her eyes for years.”
I gasp, surprised that he sounds so relaxed and convincing at the same time. He’s a far better actor than I ever gave him credit for.
“So you’ve been in love all this time?”
“All this time.” He meets my eyes. “She just never saw it before.”
What the hell?
My heart hammers and my breath hitches like I actually believe him.
“You two are really cute. Thanks for letting us feature you. Blossom Park is gorgeous, and I hope everyone realizes what a perfect spot for a wedding it is.”
“We hope that too,” I say, recovering from my emotional upheaval at Wes’s acting. “It’s such a special place. We hope a lot more people decide to begin the rest of their lives here.”
The magazine folks start wrapping up after that, and an hour later they’re gone.
I’m so exhausted that I’m about to drop, and I suspect Wes feels similar. He’s not even muttering little comments to try to make me laugh anymore.
“Thank God that’s over,” he breathes as we wave the people off.
“That’s for sure.”
“It went well though, don’t you think?”
“Yeah. I don’t see how it could have gone better.”
“Me too.”
I peer up at his face. “You’re a good actor.”
“You think so?”
“Yeah. Way better than I expected. Why did you never try out for theater in school?”
“I never even thought about it.” He gives me a wink. “Maybe it’s a secret talent I’ve had all this time that was even a secret to me.”
“I guess so.”
It really was remarkable. For a few moments earlier today, I could have sworn he was really in love with me.