Read Online Wedding Girl by Stacey Ballis - Free Book Online

life; if she wants to spend the rest of it with fond memories of the people who blew off her wedding because they thought it was just a casual birthday party, that’s her business. And if she wants a basic boring wedding cake, then I’m grateful, because after over a month of butter cookies and rugelach, I’m definitely ready to make something,
anything
a little bit challenging.
    â€œWell, that seems smart.”
    â€œYeah. We think it will be great fun and, actually, will save my life.”
    â€œWhy is that?”
    â€œOur parents are all sort of traditional people, you know? When we got engaged, both our moms all of a sudden went full-tilt insane and started talking about showers and bridesmaids, and
colors
. Like seriously, all that ‘my colors are blush and bashful’ bullshit. We finally got them to stop by telling them to agree to let us be happily engaged for six months before pressuring us about a wedding. Brian’s birthday is our six-month mark, and we just thought, this way? We get to plan a great fun party and do it just the way we want with no outside input, and then we don’t have to do all the crap we don’t want to do. Plus, we both have pretty large circles of friends, so we are already at about a hundred and fifty people; if we got the families involved? There would be so much pressure to include, like, all the third cousins from Atlanta, and all the parental business associates, just too much.”
    I laugh, thinking about my own wedding planning, and the debacle that ensued, and wonder if this girl isn’t onto something after all. “Too bad you don’t have my parents. They have never gotten married themselves, and the idea of a wedding at all, let alone a traditional one, gives them hives.”
    â€œGod, that sounds amazing; can we adopt them?”
    â€œYou’re welcome to them. I could have used your parents when I was planning my wedding . . .” This slips out, and when I see Amelia sneak a peek at my bare left hand, I can feel my face color. “Runaway groom.” Usually the wedding that wasn’t is an off-limits topic for me, but the damn Canyon Ranch counselor told me that I will never fully move forward to the future I deserve until I am able to claim the whole event as an important part of my past.
    â€œOuch.”
    â€œYou’re telling me. Literally left at the altar. Well, left in the foyer very near the altar, but close enough.”
    â€œYou are freaking
kidding
me? No way.”
    â€œWay.” And then, for no reason other than this girl’s wide brown eyes full of empathy, and the strangely intimate air of the bakery with the rain pelting the windows, I tell her.
Everything.
The perfect wedding, the plans, the cost, the crushing debt, how I ended up here at this run-down little bakery part-time instead of at the helm of my own fancy restaurant grinding it out for Michelin stars. I tell her about the meticulous details and the photographer, and how I went totally off the rails and lost my job and am now hiding out here. She listens rapt to my tale of woe and at one point reaches out and grabs my hand and doesn’t let go. By the time I’ve shared every bit of my secret shame and public humiliation and personal financial devastation, we have finished the entire pitcher of tea and half of a chocolate babka.
    â€œDamn, girl, that is just the most amazing terrible story I have ever heard. I mean, seriously, that is
epic
. When does the movie start filming? Please tell me you are going with Sandra Bullock to play you.”
    This makes me laugh. “Yeah, it feels about that real. But please, I’m holding out for Melissa McCarthy to play me. Sandra can play my best friend, Ruth.”
    â€œI’m coming to the premiere.” She pauses and tilts her head a little bit. “Is it hard? Making wedding cakes, I mean, after all that?”
    I think about this for a moment. “I dunno,