"Have things been booked?" she asked cautiously, hoping they didn't plan to get married at center ice in the Moens Center. She envisioned the wedding party on skates and the guests in the stands wearing jerseys, and repressed a wince. "By this point I would normally have booked the venue, the photographer and videographer, the musicians for the ceremony, and the band or DJ for the reception."
"We've booked the venue." Lovey made a face. "The Peninsula."
"Nice."
"We need to have the wedding in a hotel because we're going to have a lot of out-of-town guests, but we wanted something that wasn't just … " She waved a hand. "Generic. So I'm not entirely happy about that. I would have liked to get married somewhere more unique. Like the Chicago Cultural Center. But oh well. We've also got the photographer and videographer booked, but nothing else."
Katelyn nodded and made notes. "So no hockey theme, then?"
Lovey blinked, glanced at Marc, then turned back to her. "Um, no."
"Whew." Katelyn grinned. "Not that a hockey-themed wedding couldn't be awesome, but I was having visions of the entire wedding party on skates."
Lovey laughed nervously. "Nope, just a nice, normal wedding. Classy and elegant."
Katelyn nodded, doing a little deep-breathing exercise. Okay. Classy and elegant. She wanted to do this wedding. She'd just have to deal with the hockey connection. She gave them a bright smile. "I can so do classy and elegant. And we can definitely do that at the Peninsula." And yay, Lovey hadn't hired her because she wanted to replicate the zombie makeup the bride and groom had sported for the Walking Dead wedding. "We'd need to get right on booking music. The florist too, but I know some good ones that should be able to do this. Have you ordered your dress?"
"No." Lovey squeezed her eyes shut. "I've tried on a gazillion dresses and none of them have been right."
Katelyn nodded. "A gazillion."
Marc smiled and clasped Lovey's hand. "Lovey has a tendency to exaggerate."
Katelyn smiled. "Finding the right dress is possibly the hardest part of the whole process. I understand, and I can help with that too. Well, I think we can do this in six months, if you're committed to that date."
"Oh, great!" Lovey sighed.
"I take pride in providing couples with the wedding of their dreams, without the stress. I have a wide network of top vendors I've done business with, and I try to use the best products and services while working within your budget. Most of all, I believe that giving you the wedding of your dreams means listening carefully to what you want and then making it happen. Let's have a look at your ideas and talk about budget. Then what I'll do is draft up a proposal with my services, which you can review and make a final decision whether you want to hire me or not."
"I do want to hire you!" Lovey said, straightening. "I like you."
Marc chuckled. "Lovey. Chill."
Katelyn smiled. "You should wait until you see my proposal to decide for sure."
Lovey grinned. "Okay, that just sealed the deal. I like someone who's confident but not pushy. You're hired."
Chapter 2
Tanner arrived at Duper's condo Wednesday evening for the "wedding meeting." He'd rather be standing naked in front of the net, having pucks shot at him. But he had to do this for his buddy. Apparently things were urgent now because of some issue with the wedding planner Lovey had hired. The entire wedding party (minus Lovey's matron of honor, Randi, who lived in Madison, and her cousin Kendra, who lived in New York) were assembling for some kind of important strategy session.
Jesus. It was a wedding.
Lovey opened the door and smiled at him. "Hi, Tanner. Come on in."
Yeah, yeah, he'd do this for Lovey too. Lovey had a way of making people want to do anything she asked. She was just so damn sweet and persuasive.
"Sorry I'm late. I had a dinner meeting with my agent."
More fun. He was now in the final year of his contract with the Aces and his agent was in town to continue negotiations on a new contract for him. Things had gone okay today, but apparently the team wasn't jumping all over their contract terms. Sounded like the length of the contract was the main sticking point, but everyone knew it was also money. It made his stomach hurt if he thought about it. So he tried not to. After all, that was what he had an agent for-Kevin looked after the business part of things, leaving him free to play hockey. And this year he needed to prove he was worth the eight year, twenty-six million dollar contract they were looking for.