The Garden Witch

Part 7

I wake to the sun beating down on us.

What has this man done to me?

I have bigger fish to fry, however - the prince, Prince Alexander, is watching us from the edge of the wood. Not only that, noticing us watching him watching us him, and begins to stride over to me.

I try to hide. Apollo appears bored and stares back at him as if as a challenge.

"I want you to do that to me" pouts Prince Alexander, like a hurt child.

"What?"

"If you don't" he warns, "I will tell everyone."

"That's not fair!" I exclaim.

"Or you could marry me."

I look at  Apollo, who shrugs back.

"He's the prince. He could murder all of us" says Apollo.

"My  mom would move the wedding somewhere else and the curse of your family could be solved. I know you know I know what you know" says Alexander. "You wouldn't want that would you? I would still let you see Apollo... with some supervision."

Begrudgingly, I accept. I would be their new princess. I cry as we walk back. Apollo and I parting, feeling incredibly helpless

...

I go about my work, angry, and hot with need. Who are these fairy idiots and what gives them the right to be so misogynistic and horny all the time? Suddenly, these arrives that my family has become so enamored with are the same people I want so badly gone.

I find myself messing with floral arrangements, and wanting MC Hammer to be on the reception song-list. I end up tricking the princess to play Britney Spears' Toxic and Justin Timberlake's Bringing Sexy Back without her listening to the songs. This is going to make for some hilariously awkward situations among fairy royalty.

The more I've done weddings in my life, the more I've grown to hate them. This one may be the last wedding that I ever do.

One woman that was my client , the nicest girl you could meet, ended up inviting 200 people to her wedding. She invited "immediate" family, half-cousins, half siblings, their family, her stepdad's family that she didn't even known - let alone her college friends, childhood friends, and married couples she knew distantly but felt had to be there. That didn't even include the groom's family - or that distant family of his in Alabama.

You think that is bad?

There was another woman I knew as a client who worked for a large satellite community church with 5,000 people ore more. She knew everyone around the 4 satellite churches including the head pastor, and she wanted to invite all the people she knew.

The Church paid for most of the wedding, but that made it harder to coordinate with. Looking back, I wouldn't even say the money was worth it - cause my team and I had to end up decorating 40 out of the hundred rooms that people could "possibly" walk into; as well as directing catering for well over 400 people.

Even after everything had been planned, after the wedding at the reception, the mother had stuff to pick on us for.

I would never do that again. However, I did have a client that found Mr. Right at 38. They had planned the wedding in Charleston, and a major hurricane was suddenly coming. We had to plan a 3 day wedding in Atlanta and pulled it off through a local school and two Buckhead homes.

The bride was crying from happiness, and sparkled like a fairy princess in her dress - making it feel very rewarding. After many years of being disappointed in love, she found the one person that made her so happy she could cry. Her groom looked on at her, radiant, and full of love for the woman that he held in his arms. Meanwhile, I was getting drunk in the backyard.

It's that I don't believe in love, I do want to. I'm just cynic because it has never happened to me, and the more I've been rejected and stayed single, the more I've become convinced that I am not the relationship type. I've always been one of those people that have been a "quick flame" relationship, burning hot and cold, being too needy or too traumatized, and in the end being blamed for the demise of the relationship.

Every now and then, I engage in romance novels. I wouldn't be a wedding planner if I didn't have a "hopeless romantic" side. I'll admit, there is some part of me that enjoys the job. In the end, building a fantasy and learning what makes people happy is what I'm good at - perhaps that's why I've been helping out my family for so long.