As much as I love Daniel- and really, I love him to the ends of the word and back- spending an entire day with him at my workplace was not an experience I wanted to re-live any time soon. I should have known from his 'What could go wrong?' attitude this morning that practically everything could, indeed, go wrong.
Having spent a great deal of the morning trying to persuade Daniel to stay at the house or go out and explore the city, I had finally given up and allowed Daniel to accompany me to the Vogue office. It was rather cute how excited he got about coming with me and seeing where I spent most of my time, although his insistence that he be the new Jasmine was quite worrisome.
For the most part, I'd managed to keep Daniel busy by giving him task after task to occupy his mind. Even a trip down to wardrobe had proved a success, if only for the fact that Daniel had managed to do a lot of birthday present shopping for Jenna down there. Minus the painfully expensive price tag that usually came with a Fendi Peekaboo tote. The fact that he'd managed to pry a miniature Dolce and Gabbana clutch from the hands of a hard-nosed fashionista was quite impressive, too. Apparently, Nola would love the bright flower design that adorned the front of the box clutch and it would make a fabulous Christmas gift.
"How much would this retail for, exactly?" Daniel asked as we rode the lift back to my floor. He held up the small clutch and examined it a little closer. "Two, three hundred pounds?"
I give him a small smile. "Add about a thousand pounds to that and then you're in the right ballpark."
"How much?!" He practically shouted as the lift doors dinged open on my floor.
The woman behind the desk, Samantha, peered up from the computer and glared at Daniel, before her stern features softened at seeing me. Ignoring her, because she's a classic sycophant, I lead Daniel back through the winding corridors until we were finally back at my office. Knowing that I had quite a few e-mails to reply to, I turned on the computer and logged in on the system while Daniel reclined on the sofa that's in my office. He picked up the iPad that's on the coffee table and kept himself occupied while I worked.
He was quiet for almost five minutes when he let out a long sigh and dropped the tablet onto his lap. "It says here that we should have set a budget, created a guest list, booked a photographer and a videographer, hired the entertainment, caterers, and cars, as well as booked the honeymoon," he says, pointing at the iPad in front of him. "Oh, you also should have chosen your wedding dress. We should also have picked wedding invites, chosen a wedding cake, booked a honeymoon suite and taken out wedding insurance. Is wedding insurance even a thing?"
I blink at him. Shaking my head, I finish writing out my reply to Karl Lagerfeld, read through it carefully and then hit send before I turn back to Daniel, giving him my full attention. "What are you going on about now?"
"Wedding stuff," he says. Picking up the iPad, he turns it towards me, proudly showing me the Martha Stewart website he has up on screen. "I searched for a wedding planner because, by the time you get back to London, we'll only have two months to go. I saw your wedding magazines in the kitchen yesterday so I know you're already thinking about all this stuff, so I thought it was about time I started thinking about it too. Between the house and the fundraiser, I feel like the wedding is taking a backseat to it all when, really, it should be at the forefront of our minds."
Kicking off my Louboutin pumps, I leave my desk and take a seat next to Daniel on the sofa, curling my legs up underneath me while peering down at the web page that lit up from the screen. While it was true that I'd subscribed to Brides Magazine, I wasn't overly familiar with the ins and outs of planning a wedding. All I ever did with the magazines was look at the photos and think, 'Oh, that's pretty!' Knowing that there was an actual timeline to everything and that we had missed most of it was worrying, but then, I'd already covered the most important detail.
"You can tick off getting a wedding dress," I tell Daniel as I point to the item on the list. "I've already got one. As for the caterers, you can mark that off, too. Also, I know a photographer that will be more than willing to take the photos for us, and I've already chosen my bridesmaids."
"When did you decide all this?" Daniel almost accuses, looking down at me with a frown knitted between his brows.
"I've had the dress picked out for a while and I chose the bridesmaids practically on the day I asked you to marry me," I smile. Holding up my hand, I count out the list of the women I've chosen to be my bridesmaids. "Charlotte, Emma, Jasmine and Jenna. How many ushers will you have, because I figure we need the numbers to be pretty even."
Daniel pulls in his lower lip in that way he does when he's thinking. "Well, my best man will be Samuel, although Elias will have something to say about that," he laughs. "Fletch and Michael, I was thinking would be good, and of course, Lucas."
I shake my head. "You can't have Lucas."
"Why not?" My fiancé questions, looking hurt that I wouldn't allow my brother to be a part of his troop of ushers. "You're having Jenna, I want Lucas."
"Which would be fine," I say, shrugging my shoulders lightly. "If I hadn't already asked him to give me away."
As much as it was tradition to ask your father to walk you down the aisle, Dad had already had that experience with Emma. I wasn't a stickler for tradition and with Dad's blessing, I asked Lucas if he would do me the honour. Naturally, Luc got all excited at the prospect and asked if he could also supply the Father of the Bride speech, too, which was something I left for him and Dad to argue about. All I wanted was for my brother to be a big part of the day. The rest of the details was up to him.
"What about Jimmy?" Daniel refers to my father by the nickname only Dad's family and closest friends call him.
"What about him?" I mindlessly ask, looking through the other details that were listed. I had the gown sorted, as well as the shoes, hair, and makeup. I hadn't really considered a veil and bridal accessories, but I was certain about the whole something new, something old, something borrowed, something blue. Oh, invites. "Are we having some sort of theme to the wedding?"
"Excuse me?" Daniel closes his eyes and shakes his head, showing his confusion. "What about your dad?"
"He'll still be at the wedding, but it'll be Lucas giving me away," I explain, looking up at my fiancé. Shuffling closer to him, I drape one of my legs over Daniel's knee in the way I do when we're at home. "Dad knows and he's cool with it all. Lucas is an intrinsic part of my life and I cannot imagine getting married without him by my side. That's where he's always been and that's where he'll be on the day that I go from being Miss Delaney to Mrs Whitaker. Now, are we having a theme to the wedding? I don't mean Cowboys and Indians, I mean black and gold."
Surprisingly, between the both of us, Martha Stewart's website, and Pinterest, Daniel and I had almost finalised all the details concerning our nuptials. We were going for a white, glitter, and gold New Year's Eve theme and the wedding ceremony itself was going to be held at the church on the Courtenay Estate while the reception will be held in one of the barns closest to the church. We wanted a live jazz band, if possible, but Daniel was adamant that Samuel knew someone that was a great acoustic guitar player and we could always have a DJ as a last resort.
As it would be a New Year's Eve wedding, we thought it might be cool to only have twelve tables in total, and to show the table number we'd have a clock as part of the centrepieces, the arms pointing towards each hour indicating the table number. Due to the limited number of tables we were planning on having, it meant that we had to cut back on the number of guests, which surprisingly made creating a seating plan all that easier.
"Why is it that my guest list runs over two pages while yours only covers half of one?" I asked, comparing my guest list to Daniel's.
"That's because you come from a huge family," Daniel notes. "Your family is close while mine is... anyway, that's why your list is longer than mine."
It took a little longer for us to agree on favours for our reception guests. Daniel wanted to gift them with miniature bottles of Champagne and truffles, while I wanted something that would tie in with our wedding. Eventually, seeing as the wedding was to be held on New Year's Eve, we thought giving out sparklers and a hangover recovery kit might be more suitable.
"Afterall," Daniel said with an amused grin on his face. "Your family drink an obscene amount of alcohol."
"Well, unlike you and your friends and family," I countered. "Mine can handle their alcohol intake and don't suffer the morning after. Personally, I think the Delaney's would prefer the Champagne idea. You know, keep the party going. But it's your side that I'm most concerned about. So, let's go with the sparklers and the hangover recovery kit."
"I take offence at that," he pouts.
"You would."
"Ok, down to the last item on the list," Daniel says as he scribbles down what we had just agreed upon. "Ceremony music and reading. Personally, I think for our first dance, we should have something unusual."
I pull away from him and narrow my eyes. "Unusual?"
"In the sense that no one else would ever think about having this song as their wedding song," he explains, turning his head slightly to look at me. "What was that French song that was playing in that bar in Paris when we were there back in March?"
"Hymne à L'Amour," I answer, a smile breaking out on my face as I remember the last night we spent together in Paris. I'd dragged Daniel into this quaint little café bar that only ever played Édith Piaf and when a certain song began to play, all the older couples got up to dance. While Daniel didn't really know what the lyrics were about, he still held out his hand for me, insisting we join in, 'to get the real Paris experience.' Going along with it, I took Daniel's offer and together we danced for the entirety of the song. I think it was then that my feelings for him were solidified. I knew as I was held in his embrace, my cheek resting against his heavily beating chest, that I was falling for him. Undeniably, falling for him. "There's an English version, too, if you really want that song."
Daniel shakes his head. "No, I want the French version," he insists. "It was the song that was playing when I knew that I wanted to spend the rest of my life with you, so it damned well better be the song playing when you and I start that journey together."
"French version it is," I say, trying to hide my widening grin, but failing spectacularly. Not caring who could see into the office, I purposely knock the iPad out of Daniel's hand and watch as it falls onto the carpeted floor, and then practically throw myself onto him. In a dignified kind of way, of course. Taken aback, Daniel's eye widen, although they shine with amusement. "Did you know that you, Mr Whitaker, are all kinds of amazing?"
"Mhm," he mutters, edging his face closer and closer to mine while his hands pull at my waist until we're pressed together. "I've always known that. And guess what?"
"What?"
"You get to spend the rest of your life with someone as amazing as me," he sinfully smirks. Playfully slapping his bicep, I roll my eyes at his words. "But then again, I do get to spend the rest of my life with someone as amazing as you, so I guess we're even, huh?"
Even? Not even close. I'm pretty sure that out of the two of us, I'm getting the better end of the deal. I get Daniel.
He get's a crazy lady.