An Affair To Remember

Oh, Look, It's Coffee O'Clock! (Forty-Four)

The day had arrived that the happy couple would become Mr. and Mrs. Isaac Campbell. Certainly, quite a few women scattered around Florida were in mourning today if aware that the ex-playboy was finally tying the knot. Both he and his fiancee had planned on a small intimate wedding, but once Briana let the cat out of the bag to their parents, that plan incinerated as quickly as a wooden house doused in kerosene. On the day following Christmas, Paul and Annette arrived back in Canova Beach from their vacation and promptly received a phone call from their youngest child who let them in on the little secret that Isaac and Sarah were getting married on New Year's Eve.

Though Briana completely understood that her brother did not want the family to know of his impending wedding until after it was over, she decided to tell anyway, claiming that she had done it for his own good. And although he wanted to swipe one of her tennis rackets and pretend her bottom was the ball, deep down Isaac knew that she had done the right thing. He could only imagine how his father would react if his only son (his playboy son at that) were to get married without his knowledge. The retired police officer would be a very disgruntled man and it wouldn't be simple for Isaac to assuage his anger. Yes, Briana had definitely saved him--a thirty-three year old man--from being in trouble with his dad and possibly mom as well. Though Annette was much easier going than her husband, she undoubtedly would not take hearing the news of her son's secret wedding lightly.

After Paul and Annette were made aware of Isaac's upcoming nuptials, they immediately placed a call to Sarah's parents who they were still close with even after all those years of not living less than a mile apart. Needless to say, Michael and Faye Morrison (who was previously on the force along with Paul) were less than pleased to hear that their only daughter was intending to get married for the first time without even bothering to tell and involve them in the ceremony.

The Morrisons and Campbells conversed for over an hour via their speakerphones about what they were going to do in order to make this small intimate wedding not so small and intimate. Afterwards, Sarah was the recipient of a phone call from her parents, which quickly turned into a lecture on why she should have told them about the wedding in the first place. She lost count of how many times she felt compelled to apologize.

Though their children repeatedly informed them that it would be impossible to pull off a grand scale wedding with only four days to plan, the parents would not be dissuaded. As far as they were concerned, this wedding was going to be Sarah and Isaac's first and last. Therefore, they would send them off down that road of happily marital bliss with a big bang. They saw it as their responsibility to take over...ahem...take care of the wedding plans. After all, they were the parents.

By sunset of December twenty-sixth, Paul and Annette arrived in Orlando where they met up with Michael and Faye at their home to discuss wedding plans. The first business to be discussed: they would split the bill fifty-fifty, although Michael insisted that the bride's parents were supposed to pay for the wedding. Of course, Paul wasn't going for that, so it was unanimously voted half-and-half.

By the evening of December thirtieth, with much help from renowned wedding coordinator Lance Mitchell (Faye knew him through a friend whose daughter had gotten married a few months back) everything was in place, and they were ready to begin the ceremony at eleven o'clock sharp the next morning. And thank goodness for the invention of the Internet because due to their electronically sent RSVP invites (a few relatives and friends who didn't subscribe to the Internet had to be called), they mostly received affirmative replies.

So, it was just past ten-thirty on New Year's Eve, and all one hundred plus guests had arrived and were being escorted to their seats. The bride and groom sides were nearly equal in the number of guests they had, and all of them waited in anticipation for the ceremony to begin. Those that knew Isaac could hardly believe that he was finally settling down. Practically everyone had expected him to be a wandering-eyed playboy until the day he died. Well, today he was proving them wrong, and they couldn't be more thrilled.