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38 MEG

The Wedding

People always said, when you told them you were getting married, that some parts of the wedding day would be nerve-racking. They would preach advice like you were undergoing some endurance test or like the stakes were the highest you could imagine. They said you had to remember to eat something and not to drink too much because people were constantly passing you fizz. Make sure you have water, often, and eat, she had been told. People had said to her, in the months since their engagement, that the moment everybody looked at you as you walked up the aisle was tear-inducing and scary, at first, and people had also whispered at her about after the day itself, the days where it was finally all over and you felt some kind of grief about it. People were so obsessed with weddings she had even been given details like when to go to the toilet, or how to manage your make-up over a twelve-hour day. Nobody, however, had told Meg about the minutes before the wedding ceremony.

People had popped in to say hi – Ailie, Mark and Martha had all been there – but now they had left, and with secrecy around what they told her, she felt quickly panicked. What was she doing?

She asked for a second in the bathroom and was breathing, three-four-five, to bring herself back to the present. It wasn’t fear or cold feet that brought her here, but an overwhelming feeling of life , the fact she was living through a milestone moment. The idea of being wedded to Hannah forever took her breath away. It was in a good way, but it was still more intense than any average day tended to be.

Every now and again when she moved, she could smell her mum’s dress. Though there was a dusty smell – it had been in their attic for decades – there was also a perfume she couldn’t recognize, maybe one her mum had worn before Meg, or bought specially for the day. She felt a bit dizzy if she thought about that, like her eyes were watering. She tried not to think about her mum.

Her hands were clammy and she had to remind herself not to, as usual, wipe her palms down the front of what she was wearing. She was sweating beneath her hair, which after heavy styling, felt heavier than it ever had. Meg’s heart was thumping in her chest in a way where it felt like it was trying to escape, to run away or to run to Hannah. She wondered how Hannah, likely standing right now at the top of an aisle (did they even have an aisle?) was feeling.

‘Meg?’

There was a light knock at the door.

‘Yes, David?’

‘Can I come in?’

‘Yes.’

David poked his head round the door, and then seeing her, hands clasping onto the sink, white with terror, came in and closed the door behind him.

‘Here,’ he said. ‘Sit on the toilet. Take a second.’

‘Why have I done this?’ she said. ‘What was I thinking?’

‘You kind of chose this,’ he said, grinning. ‘Sorry.’

‘I know, it’s crazy,’ Meg said, her chest heaving up and down. She felt instantly calmed by David’s presence. ‘You had the right idea, you know; we should have just stayed as we were. Nothing wrong with just being partners.’ A pause. ‘I’m sweating so much.’

‘That’s okay.’

‘Am I making weddings seem appealing?’

He smiled. ‘I’ll decide on me and Mark after you’ve done the whole thing,’ David said. ‘Which starts with us getting in a taxi, where you are due, minus two minutes ago. You’ve got this.’

Meg heaved herself up.

‘Do you need an emergency wee?’ he asked.

‘Maybe.’

‘I’ll be outside.’ David smiled at her, walking into the hall. ‘Take your time; it’s your day.’

When they walked together out the door she saw that Mark’s car was the taxi, with ‘about to be married’ written on cardboard on the back. They left, and soon they were on the high street, a now familiar place, and the car stopped abruptly. Because of blacked-out windows, Meg couldn’t tell exactly where they were, or see out of the windows.

‘Are we here already?’

‘Time to get out,’ David said.

When she did, she was confused. It looked like there was some kind of event happening in the street, and then she realized they were outside the flower shop. However, she’d thought it was somewhere else because there were rows of people sitting outside on tiered seating made up of wooden pallets, painted in bright colours. Had they planned their wedding on the same day as … ?

There was a general sort of intake of breath as people realized one of the brides had arrived.

‘Meg, the wedding’s here,’ David said, gesturing to Savage Lilies, whose signage had been covered up with a huge banner that read MEG AND HANNAH. ‘It’s in the shop. Let me show you.’

She took his hand and he led her towards the door. The music she’d wanted to walk down the aisle to was playing, but not the right part of it, but she was too taken in with what David and the others had got done that she couldn’t really think about anything as insignificant as what music was playing. She was so happy. The view in front of her was perfect.

‘Just smile,’ she said, more to herself than any advice for David. His arm steadied her shaking hand and she was able to walk slowly but surely. The waves of people standing to see her felt like a Mexican wave. Any sort of guest list had gone out of the window. All of the youth group were seated in chairs outside at the back, followed by a number of each of their work friends, and Ailie and the rest of the university girls were sitting in the last front row with their boyfriends and husbands, before she reached the doorway to the shop itself. Sophie and her husband waved to her and she saw the woman who collected for the food bank.

Someone, or everyone, had managed to make outside feel like inside. There were huge card drawings of flowers and pride flags lining the banks of chairs, making it feel completely natural that there was the glass window of the building dividing the area into two. Flowers were stacked in buckets out to the sides of the chairs. Where beautifully specific arrangements had gone out of the window, instead, the sheer bulk of what seemed to be the shop’s entire stock meant the street and the shop felt full of colour. Like the shop, she felt full, but her eyes began to scan, to see if two people in particular had come. She couldn’t tell.

The windows, she noticed, as she took a deep breath and walked inside the shop, had been cleared of their usual foliage. In a white marker-pen, someone, probably Ailie, had scrawled in decorative writing: Love Wins and a huge love heart. The big table was hidden behind the counter so you couldn’t get there, and short rows of three chairs were on either side of an aisle that was littered with tiny decorated pieces of cardboard that looked like flowers. It was cramped, for sure. A variety of plants and flowers hung from the ceiling and all around; at the front, on the counter, was a tiny arch that reached Caleb the celebrant’s head, but only just. The whole room smelt of cleaning fluid and flowers, and Meg noticed a neon love heart propped up on the counter.

Forcing herself to walk slowly, Meg saw Hannah’s parents and family, as well as Mark, Carl, Gus and Ramon. Everybody had stood up, and her eyes scanned for her parents, though she could barely distinguish anybody, given how watery her eyes were.

She kept walking and it wasn’t till she hugged Hannah and turned quickly out to look back at the crowd that she could look properly, and there, in the front row, turning slowly, were her mum and dad. Her mum wiped at her face with a tissue. As she did so, she broke into a massive smile, and Meg smiled back, before finding it too intense and looking away. Her dad waved at her.

They came.

‘Thank you,’ she mouthed to them, as she stood next to Caleb, and Hannah, who she looked at properly now. She was wearing smart, polished, black shoes, and her hair was down entirely, flowing in its curls onto her chest and down her back. Her striped suit, a faded brown, was oversized and suited her style perfectly. Meg glimpsed a floral pattern on the inside lining. On the lapel, a tiny gardenia from Meg’s bouquet was pinned to her. Her hands were folded in front of her and Meg could see her fingers fiddling with themselves.

She took another look at the crowd. More people were crying than she expected; she saw Gus’s parents, his mum crying, and Ailie and the girls were all dabbing at their eyes with tissues. She saw her mum take in her dress and start to cry more, and Meg didn’t know whether that was out of appreciation or because her dress had been torn in half, but she put it to the back of her mind.

She said thank you to David, who went to go and find his seat, getting a laugh from the crowd when he waved at everybody and announced his name. Meg reached across to grab Hannah and they hugged briefly.

‘Hi.’

‘Hi, Han.’

‘All okay?’

‘More than.’

Meg hadn’t even noticed but Matty, holding one camera and another strapped on a belt to his body, was following her, and now sat on the table behind the counter to take photos through the flower arch. She glanced again at her parents, and noticed they, like everybody else, were wearing small pride-flag ribbons round their wrists, made from the wrapping David usually used on his special bouquets.

‘Right,’ Caleb said loudly through a microphone. ‘We got here.’ There were laughs from the audience, which seemed to break any tension. ‘Everybody, shall we begin?’

To cheers, they did.

After Ailie’s beautiful reading of a poem, there was just one tense moment when Caleb asked whether ‘anybody here present knows of any legal impediment …’ There was a brief moment of silence, and a laugh. She heard Benji shout something from outside, which she supposed Caleb should have taken seriously, but had let it slide. It had sounded like ‘Obviously not, man!’

All Meg was trying to do during that moment was avoid her parents’ eyes, since a tiny part of her, a single percentage, wondered whether they had come just to object. They didn’t though, and she breathed a sigh of relief. Everything was going to be okay.

‘You never know,’ Caleb had joked to the crowd. ‘There can often be a lot of last-minute surprises.’

There really had been.

Eventually, and Meg kept reminding herself to take in every second as people had told her, Caleb paused before announcing that he could now proclaim them wife and wife, and that they might now kiss each other.

They kissed, somewhat self-consciously, a brief peck on the lips, but Matty muttered for them to do it for longer so he could get the photo so they did and people cheered again, louder than the last time. Meg couldn’t help but smile. It was a cacophonous noise that echoed in the busy space, with a tailing sort of cheer from outside, which sounded abnormally loud, like that too was playing from a speaker.

‘Now, I want you to all cheer the happy couple outside, and into the rest of the day,’ Caleb said. ‘This has been one of the most unique weddings I’ve officiated; I’ll tell you that. I wish the happy couple the best and it’s now over to all of you—’ he gestured to the crowd ‘—to make the day as special as possible. I know a lot of you have already contributed to getting us here so on behalf of the couple, thank you.’

Meg looked at Caleb, tearing her eyes away from Hannah for a second. She had always thought he was somewhat serious, too formal for their vibe as a couple, but she was beginning to like him. Even more so when he added: ‘It looks for the people outside like the sun is slowly creeping out so here’s hoping that stays for the rest of the day. Go and enjoy the weather. June weather can be tricky, but I guess that’s Pride month for you.’

He was smiling now, in on the ridiculousness of the whole day, when he announced: ‘May I present … Meg and Hannah!’

He winked at them and they set off down the aisle, Meg awfully aware of her feet and what her face was doing. She tried to look forward for Matty’s camera as flower petal confetti fell on them, in reds and yellows and oranges. Meg could feel the petals getting caught on her dress and hair, but she didn’t mind, and they walked out the front of the shop where more people were lined up throwing more.

Hannah looked at her and whispered to her. ‘They’re from all the broken-stem roses David has. He’s been collecting them for months.’

Out on the street, she was blinded by the light before her eyes adjusted, and she kept walking, hand clasped in Hannah’s, but suddenly they seemed to have kept walking for ages. Meg realized it was because behind the rows was a crowd of people standing, who hadn’t been there before, or had they? The crowd had definitely got so large, there was no way to even reach the end of the it.

‘What on earth …’ Hannah said under her breath.

As far as the eye could see, people were cheering. There were perhaps a hundred more people than there were guests.

‘What’s happening?’ Meg said. ‘Did you … ?’

‘I don’t …’

People continued to throw petals. David must have been collecting for ages. Meg could see Ramon waving from his taco truck. She noticed quickly he’d finally implemented her branding suggestion, and the truck’s new name, Taco Chance On Me, was lit up on the top. Leaning out of the serving hatch, he was blowing on a horn. Next to him, there was a bar on wheels called Pink Drinks, and next to that was a raised platform where Martha was waving, headphones around her neck, playing a Hall and Oates song. It was magical and it was queer and it was all theirs. Now, not because she had to, but because she wanted to, she kissed Hannah again to even louder cheers. As it happened, despite the crowds that were all there for them, Meg could have sworn they were alone, together, finally wife and wife.