The products from this designer would be perfect for Toni’s wedding to Shelly, Lucy thought. But then as if right on cue, that awful feeling in the pit of her stomach about the risks involved to pull off such an elaborate ceremony sunk her like a rock in the lake.
Her excitement waned for some reason, though she had less fear of Antonio than she had before. Was Maxine right? Was she really having those symptoms of a person who had caught the magical love bug? Or was that lust?
The noise level in the auditorium was quite high but they could still hear the enthusiastic speaker hawking off all the unique elements in their themed-wedding booth. Lucy used many suppliers in the past but she was always glad to attend these shows to meet upcoming designers and view the latest hot trends in the biz. Keeping up with the best and most current trends was the name of the game in the wedding planning industry. You wanted to let people know you had everything to offer them to make their dream ceremony come true.
“Oh, look, this is interesting,” Maxine said pulling Lucy away from the booth an hour later after they placed their orders.
“What is this?” Lucy said looking around for the display sign for the tent they were approaching.
“It looks like a tent booth for a DIY wedding,” Maxine replied.
“Oh, do-it-yourself. Really?” Lucy walked inside the open white tent and her vision captured the beautiful decorations and mannequins with various wedding gowns. The tent booth had tons of gorgeous wedding decorations, a conference-length table with sample foods, and various photos on stands with the countless wedding themes. It felt so surreal to be there. For the first time since her fiancé had died, Lucy actually dreamed of becoming a bride again. She squeezed her eyes shut momentarily then reopened them. It was all too much. She came so close to happily-ever-after with Jeff but now?
Maybe she would never become a bride again.
Perhaps planning weddings for others was the closest she would ever become to being a bride. She’d heard the saying always a bridesmaid, never a bride. Well, Lucy thought she might be always a wedding planner and never a bride.
“Hey, cool! You can build your own dream wedding here on their computer,” Maxine said as she scurried over to the interactive display screen. They were lucky the area wasn’t as crowded as the other parts of the booth.
“I…I’m not really interested,” Lucy lied.
“Yeah, right. Come on. How could you not be? We plan weddings for a living, don’t we?”
Lucy breathed in deeply and the pain of inhaling almost squeezed the air out of her lungs. This was all too much for her. It was like looking at pictures of babies and being told you could never have one of your own. Good heavens! What on earth was she doing in this business? Torturing herself?
No. Making others happy makes me happy.
“Okay, fine. I’ll have a look,” Lucy finally agreed.
Both girls sat down and were asked to log into a section of the screen where they could design their own dream wedding and have the information forwarded to them in their email inbox. Lucy rolled her eyes and shook her head. Marketing 101. What a great way to collect email addresses of potential clients.
Lucy followed the prompts and filled in her details, then for the hell of it she had fun with it and planned her dream wedding. She paused for a moment when the groom's initials were requested. She did not know why but she decided to have a bit of daring fantasy fun and keyed in AR. Antonio Romero. Yeah, right. Like that would ever happen.
Lucy felt silly after she’d gotten up from the display screen and looked around to see if anyone was close enough to see what she entered. She quickly decided to delete the information.
It was useless.
Fantasies were not going to make her real life any better—it was only an illusion, she tried to justify to herself. What was she doing here? Lucy decided that after planning the next three weddings that she had already been contracted to do, she would turn over the keys to a new CEO. She was done with planning weddings for others. It was too heartbreaking for her. It would only serve as a reminder of how much she had failed in her own love life.
Oh, Lucy felt down on herself for even thinking such notions. When she thought about the look on Toni’s face or that of her other clients who were in love, she realized that saying something and doing something were two completely different things. It wouldn’t be easy to give up Dream Weddings, Inc.
Just as most people who have difficulty in their jobs, they stick it out for one reason, because deep down inside it is their passion. Either that, or they need money to pay their rent and buy food. Still, she wasn’t hurting as much as she was financially two years ago and she could always try to get a job in psychology, research or teaching but it wouldn’t be as much fun.