Wedding Planning 101

Chapter One

;

Chapter 1: Racket

Some little girls aspire to be ballet dancers or cheerleaders, other strive to be footballers and tennis players. Alicia Hayden fell into the second category, she was a hardcore tennis player, the type who lived, breathed and ate it.

All through her life the racket was her best friend, her outlet of anger even someone to talk to at one point. Competitions won, trophies collected, skills improved. Alicia was accepted into a girls tennis school, it was daunting at first but she soon settled in with her people.

A few months before a huge tournament, she experienced a stabbing pain in her shoulder but quickly put it down to serving the set too hard. But the pain did not subside, Alicia practiced even harder for their
upcoming event, ignoring the tenderness of her shoulder. A few weeks before the bout, the agony of the joint was almost too much, but still no one noticed the winces and sharp intakes of breath.

Alicia woke up on the third day leading up to the contest. Her left arm was completely paralyzed. She screamed in horror and was immediately whisked away in ambulance. Due to the continuous strain put on the muscle, Alicia had wound up with severe muscle pain and an ultimatum. Continue doing sport and risk losing feeling in arm or prematurely retire and deal with the shame. She choose the latter and dropped out from the tennis school, only to attend a public secondary school.

Graduation day finally came and she signed people's shirts and gave a
speech. While on the outside she looked like a joyful, content with life teenager inside she was far from it. She hated the unknown more then anything, and needed to know what was happening next all the time. So what happens when Alisha doesn't have any clue to where she's going in life or have any goals an aspiration? She freaks out of course.

Alisha threw herself into every career move possible, trying to 'find herself'. Cooking/baking, teaching, accountancy, even taking up cereal testing at one point. But when her best friend Louise decides to get married and appoints Alicia as her maid of honor, she took it upon herself to plan the wedding to perfection. From salt-rimmed champagne flutes to choreography for the first dance of the couple. The wedding went of without a hitch, and about 90% of the happiness on her friend's face was down to her. Since Alisha had nothing to lose she figured this field of work would be worth looking into.

It was pretty easy to find work in the wedding industry, a quick flick of the yellow pages and a short phone call later, she had a low-paying tea-girl job at wedding planning firm. It wasn't the most glamorous or well paying position out there but it would be small stepping stone to where she is now.