Chapter One
I’ve imagined my wedding day since I was a little girl. Too young to understand love, but hooked on Disney princesses and all the dreams of happily ever after that come along with Cinderella and Snow White and Sleeping Beauty.
I wanted a beautiful dress, all white and wonderful. A veil with a tiara that sparkled on my head and made the thousands of people watching me walk down the aisle gasp and hold their hands to their heart and wipe tears of joy from their gleaming eyes. I dreamed of my prince, so handsome in his tuxedo, smiling at me as I floated towards him, carried by singing birds, or fluffy clouds, or some other ridiculous nonsense.
Turns out, real weddings aren’t like that.
Not at all.
I was under the impression that my wedding was going to be about Max and me, proclaiming our love for each other in front of the people who cared about us the most. And I thought planning it would be simple. We decide what we want and everyone is happy for us because it’s our day.
We want to get married on a beach, so everyone in our family says: Oh, what a wonderful idea!
We want to keep things small and intimate and so everyone in our family says: Of course! How lovely!
Is that even remotely the way things are going?
Hell no.
You really should get married in a church, says Mom. Formal weddings are so much more respectable.
Destination weddings are expensive, says Dad. It’s very selfish of you to expect us to take time off from work to travel. And pulling Charlie out of school…?
Are you dieting? You’ve got a dress and a bikini to fit into. I’d be dieting if I were you.
At least you don’t have to worry about being an old maid anymore.
What about your great aunt Sally? I know you haven’t seen her since you were six, but she’s going to be so offended if you don’t invite her…
And on.
And on.
And on.
And on.
It’s no wonder I’m a nervous wreck.
But, on the upside, all the barbed remarks from my parents have proven just exactly why Max is everything I have ever needed. For every doubt someone else plants in my head, he gives me a reason to trust my instincts and feel better about myself.
He loved the simplicity of a beach wedding and after I suggested it, we spent one whole week scouring maps of the coastal states and Googling favorite tourist destinations. Max was the one who found the town we eventually settled on. I wasn’t sold on it at first, but after hearing his explanations, I couldn’t be more excited about where we chose to get married.
It’s a small town in South Carolina. So small it barely exists. I can’t imagine there’s much to do there, which is why I kind of put up a fight when he first suggested it. But then Max explained why he loved it so much.
“First of all,” he said that night, pulling the phone with the million open search tabs of possible wedding locations out of my hands and kneeling in front of me. “Look at the name.”
“Bliss?” I remember wrinkling my nose and shrugging my shoulders.
“Yes. Bliss. Can you think of a better place to get married than a town called Bliss?” I remember the way he smiled and I remember the way he looked at me.
Open.
Honest.
Warm. His bullet blue eyes didn’t look like weapons that night while he kneeled in front of me. There was too much love in them to look even remotely dangerous.
“Well, when you put it that way, it’s actually really poetic.”
He had smiled and nodded before continuing. “But you know what else, Chelsea? Don’t you think the very fact that there’s nothing to do but lounge on the beach and drink and fuck makes this the most perfect place for us to get married? You need some down time. You need to unwind. You push way too hard, baby. I mean look at you, your shoulders are so tense they look like they’ll break if I touch you.”
And of course, everything he said was true. So true that tears stung my eyes. I remember just nodding, my voice caught in the emotion locked in my throat. Leave it to Max to plan something for the way I need it to be done, not the way I think it should be done.
When I asked him when he wanted to get married, he didn’t hesitate while he came up with an answer. He already knew.
“October,” he said. “That’s when I first met you, and that’s when I want to make you mine.”
It had all seemed so perfect at the time. I cried and hugged him and we planned the whole thing out the way we wanted it, my parents be damned. And in the months leading up to it all, I couldn’t have been more pleased with myself.