When we arrived at the wedding rehearsal Jeremy and Claire were already waiting for us as well as a blonde girl sitting on one of the empty chairs.

"You must be Lynn." she greeted holding out her hand. "The legend precedes you. My younger sister went into speedrunning just like you. Not Doom though she plays Sonic The Hedgehog. To 100% of course."

"Wouldn't want it any other way." I said proudly. I was privately pleased that my achievements through speedrunning had allowed some new talent to flourish.

"I'm Amanda." the girl introduced shaking my hand. "You must be Lynn's wife Dani. Jeremy's told me about you."

"Yes I am." Daniela introduced. "How did you and Jeremy meet?"

"University friends." Amanda explained. "We took the same course together."

Hayley and Tom arrived afterwards along with Jeremy's cousin whose real name wasn't really James but Ben.

The time for the rehearsal was reached but there was no sign of Jeremy's best man. He arrived ten minutes late rather breathless but offering no reason or apologies leaving me wondering where he'd been.

It was a quick and easy run through although Claire's mum did argue over the order of the readings. Me and Daniela shared a look when this discussion was taking place. At our own wedding this problem hadn't arisen as Uncle Jo didn't mind whether he went first or second.

Despite these gripes it was clear that the wedding was going to be an emotional affair and given Claire and Jeremy's history it couldn't be anything else.

"I'm in trouble!" Amanda said tears running down her cheeks. "I'm crying at the rehearsal, I'm going to be an emotional wreck tomorrow." She wiped her tears away with a large tissue.

"Come and help us with the tables if you like." Daniela offered.

"I'd love too but given that it's a Nicolas Sparks theme I'd probably shed tears over the books." Amanda explained apologetically. "Thanks for the offer though"

All of us moved to the main room and inconjunction with the Events team - two girls called Grace and Hannah who were finishing off the cutlery and glassware - we added the centrepieces and the table names.

Claire had been a fan of Nicolas Sparks since high school, however had been forced to hide it because Millie's gang thought it wussy to be a fan of such things. Claire had gone along with it until I had told her she shouldn't be afraid or have to apologise for liking something.

In truth I did have issues with the authors previous stance on same sex relationships but Claire was my best friend and this was her wedding and as it was my job - and Hayley's - to support her on her special day I didn't argue. Since she had done the same for my wedding it would have been churlish to do anything else.

The centerpiece themselves were simple enough; a slice of circular bark in the centre of the table, a medium sized glass bowl of flowers at one side of the bark and a stack of three books that corresponded to the table name which was the main romantic couple featured in the story so for instance the table me and Daniela were doing first was named Erin and Alex after the book Safe Haven.

"Do you need a spirit level?" Daniela teased as she put the names out watching me look at the stack of books from eye level.

"That's a negative Dan, I'll manage without thank you." I shot back good naturedly. Daniela snickered into the table cloth and continued with placing the nametags.

Our familial banter however did not find favour with Mrs Tuttle who promptly appeared from seemingly nowhere to snarl at us.

"Mrs Tuttle, my wife was only joking." I tried to explain

"Yes and it would be nice if you could finish off the tables before the wedding breakfast starts" Mrs Tuttle snapped.

Her outburst had a clear effect on us as we finished the tables. Hayley and Tom reacted in silent horror and poor Hannah got so upset that tears started to fill her eyes. On several occasions she had to stop to wipe away her tears some of them managing to escape down her face before she brushed them away. Her sister Grace got so concerned she volunteered to finish off without her.

We finished in complete silence and there was about half an hour left for me and Daniela to grab our coats from our room before we met our driver to take us to the restaurant for our evening meal.

"Well we don't often get many live specimens in the castle do we Igor!!" Daniela hammily pronounced when we closed the door, the movie quote proving effective at banishing the accumulated tension.

"I'm sorry babe." she apologised "I know she's your best friends mum and it's her daughters wedding tomorrow but she's a bit too intense." Her ponytail had come a little loose during the events of the day so she pulled out her hair tie allowing the now loose hair to fall round her shoulders.

"Don't worry." I replied brushing her left hand tenderly. "I find her a bit much too."

I knelt on the floor and searched through my bag for a piece of paper and started to read. Daniela joined me on the floor and brushed her hands through her hair before retying it back into a ponytail.

"Is that your bridesmaids speech?" she enquired. I nodded

"I'm not sure I like it anymore though." I confessed. "I don't know whether it's because I rewrote it three times or if I just rehearsed the emotion out of it."

Daniela by this time had finished her ponytail and took the offered sheet of paper to read. As she did so I subtly noticed her other hand was playing over the leather crinkles in her right boot and scratching the heel with her nails as she perused the speech.

"I know you don't like public speaking but have you tried doing it without a script." she suggested when she had finished. "You've already rehearsed it and you know Claire very well so you won't be doing it unprepared. And if you run out of words you can always ask for a toast."

She was right, I didn't enjoy public speaking because I still retained some of my shyness from childhood. However her idea was a very good one if potentially nerve wracking. But Claire's own bridesmaid speech had been very short so I was sure that I could manage without.

"Thank you." I gave my wife a tender kiss on the lips.

"Your welcome." she said returning the kiss

After the photos had finished it was time for the drinks reception. My personal job was taking Claire's grandpa round the various groups doing a few magic tricks.

Once we had concluded going round the room Amanda came towards me

"Tell Lynn what you told me." she said to Ben.

"I marathoned your Compet-N 100% project while I was waiting for Jodie Whittaker's first series of Doctor Who to start."

The project he mentioned was a challenge to play every Doom map that my speedrunning group collated records for on Ultra Violence killing every monster, picking up every scoreable item and tagging every secret wherever possible. For extra badass points I went through two of the player created games with faster, more aggressive monsters.

"The truth is had I known how labour intensive it was going to be, I probably wouldn't have done it." I confessed. "Because as challenges go it was a bit crazy!"

"But think of how many other girls you got into speedrunning." Amanda told me. "By doing something that big you proved that you were just as good as the boys and it must have been inspiring to so many. It was for my sister anyway."

I was really touched by this and couldn't stop the tears welling in my eyes again. Wiping them away I moved on to other groups until it was time for the meal.

We applauded Claire and Jeremy into the room and it was time for the speeches. I took a deep breath and started to speak beginning with the night of their first date

"At 9:30 those of us who cared started to get a little antsy wanting to know who were the Prom King and Queen." I continued. "The winners to their surprise and delight were our newlyweds. Although they parted at the end of that special night, fate brought them together again six months before my own wedding, and free from the social constraints of high school, their love was allowed to grow unhindered."

At this point I admit I ran out of words so I took Daniela's advice and asked for a toast.

"To the bride and groom." I toasted. Daniela gave me a supportive thumbs up from her seat mouthing well done.

Thank you I mouthed back. Claire leaned over to whisper into my ear.

"That was perfect Lynn thank you." she told me

"You're welcome." I replied. Jeremy's best man stood up to speak and unfortunately it wasn't very good. Jeremy looked embarrassed throughout and the guests at the tables looked like they were suppressing cringes. I mean my own speech wasn't exactly the Gettysburg address but it was deeply felt.

After our meal it was time for the first dance and as my bridesmaid duties had concluded, I went to sit with my wife so we could watch it together. The song they had chosen was One Moment In Time. The wedding singer from earlier sang the song and she was brilliant. Her final note metaphorically took the roof off the reception room.

"This song gets me everytime." Daniela told me, tears running down her cheeks. "It's the story behind it that makes me cry." I gave her a supportive hug wiping away her tears.

"May I have this dance?" I asked her once the applause had died down and Charlotte had announced the wedding party and their partners could take to the floor

"You may kind madame." Daniela said with a flourish. I giggled along with her and we took to the floor

Last edited by reptongeek (May 3, 2019 10:25 am)

Six months later

Looking at my tablet, I waited for the weather reports for Scotland to load. I was packing my case ready for Hayley and Tom's wedding and was in two minds what to pack.

The information I had from a reliable source (well reliable-ish. It was Wikipedia after all!) that September in Scotland was quite warm but of course you never quite knew.

My Internet searching came to an end however when I heard the sound of a key in the lock.

"Welcome home." I greeted Daniela giving her a long but tender loving kiss.

"It's nice to be home." she said tiredly. We silently hugged for a few moments playing with each other's hair.

"Why don't you get changed out of your suit and I'll make you a hot chocolate." I told her.

"Sounds good to me." she replied.

I went into our kitchen and filled the kettle for my tea and put some milk in the microwave to heat it up for Daniela's hot chocolate. Uncle Jo for a wedding present had bought us some personalised mugs with our names and favourite drink written on the side and we used them an awful lot.

"Do those green bags have your bridesmaid dresses in?" Daniela asked me as she came through. She'd changed out of her slate grey suit into a simple top and jeans and her soft curly hair was now out of its trademark ponytail and loose down her back.

"Have a look if you want." I told her.

"I want to, but I don't want to if that makes sense." she replied with a giggle. I finished making our drinks and we took them into the lounge and sat at our dining table.

"That was worth waiting for." my wife said contentedly as she took a sip.

"Did you have a busy day?" I asked sympathetically.

"Yes. Lot's of typing and photocopying." she replied with a grin. Daniela worked in a solicitors as a secretary during the week and I worked in my hotel during the weekend.

I wanted to let her rest for a bit and not deluge her with the itinery for the next day yet. When she finished her hot chocolate and put her mug down she asked me what the schedule was.

"Claire and Jeremy are arriving at 11am tomorrow to take us up to Berwick on Tweed. I've checked the weather and it says it's warmish but I'd take a thick jumper just in case. There's no rush we don't need to hurry."

We had finished our drinks by this point and went over to the mantlepiece to look over at our anniversary cards. There was quite a decent selection our favourite was from our niece Evelyn which featured two cats fishing in a river with a caption reading "I want THAT one!"

"Shall we keep these up or put them in our card box." Daniela asked me. Since it had been almost a month since our anniversary we mutually agreed to put them with the others. We'd kept all of our cards in a special box so we could look over them when we had a spare hour to reminisce. After we'd done this we started packing for our trip the next day.

*

"Thank you." I said to a man in his early thirties who held the door open for us enabling us to leave our building of flats. We were on the top floor which meant we had to make a couple of trips to bring both mine and Daniela's bags down as well as mine and Claire's bridesmaid dresses.

We had met this young man before. His sister came regularly to the building to check everything was okay with her parents flat which they used as a holiday home in order to see their daughter and granddaughter. Sometimes they brought their son with them and sometimes they didn't. On this occasion he must have been able to come.

We sat down on the steps in front waiting for Claire and Jeremy to arrive which they did shortly and a uniformed gentleman got out of the van.

"Lynn and Danny." he asked.

"Yes that's us." I told him. The driver's face darkened a little. Clearly he hadn't been expecting a same sex couple and this was clearly a problem. He was about to say something to this end but I cut him off.

"You could but we're not going to let you." I told him firmly. "Are you going to put our bags in the van or are we doing it ourselves."

Claire and Jeremy got out and put our bags in for us and the driver went off to make a phone call.

"How do you stand it?" Jeremy asked us slightly cross at the driver's attitude.

"We're used to it." Daniela told him sadly. "Many people we meet are perfectly fine but a small minority aren't. We just have to live with it."

"You shouldn't have to." Claire said.

"We know." I replied simply. Our driver had finished his phone call and returned to the van and silently started the engine and we drove away

As soon as I was able I returned to my room and me and Daniela shared a long and silent hug.

Neither of us said anything for a few minutes but I was sure that my wife like me was thinking (not for the first time) why same sex and multi racial relationships caused so much hate.

Tom's father had briefly spoken to Daniela while I had been speaking to Hayley and had offered to write a letter expressing his displeasure. She had told him he could if he wished but that it might not change anything.

When we finally broke apart I saw Daniela had been crying, the drying tracks of her tears still visible on her face. I'd been crying too and after the two of us had cleaned ourselves up we saw that Amanda's sister had uploaded another Sonic video

"Shall we watch it?" Daniela suggested. I replied positively and we sat down with our backs against our bed to watch Chemical Plant Zone Act I from Sonic the Hedgehog 2

After the video had concluded I found myself feeling slightly sad.

"You still miss it don't you." Daniela asked me gently.

I nodded my eyes filling with tears again.

"I noticed last year you weren't yourself on the 10th of December the anniversary of your game."

I wiped away a tear that had fallen down my left cheek.

"I'm sorry if I wasn't pleasant to live with that day."

"I was fine." Daniela told me honestly "You were back to your old self the next day so I just let you be."

More tears ran down my face.

"I'm so glad I met you. I'm so glad I fell in love with you and was able to marry you."

"Me too." Daniela told me a fresh round of tears sliding down her face. "You've been the best wife I could ever have wanted."

We tenderly wiped each others tears away and exchanged a deep kiss

Not from Lynn Marquand's personal narrative

Daniela walked into the hotel bar and stopped dead. She was shocked to see her brother in law sitting on a stool with what seemed like a glass of spirits in his hand

"Hey! Fancy seeing you here." he slurred. He'd obviously been drinking for quite some time.

"Everyone this is Daniela." he introduced to the assembled group with flailing hands. "Spelt with one L not two."

He paused for a moment seemingly lost in thought for a minute.

"Does that make any difference to the way your name is pronounced at all." he asked

"Not that I'm aware of." Daniela replied

"I thought not. So the second L is completely unnecessary!"

Daniela's eyes began to well with tears. She hated seeing her brother in law like this. She'd heard all about him from her wife and silently wished she knew him before his unfortunate indiscretion with Cassie, when he was decent and kind, not the angry person he would become later.

"Oh and if any of you guys are thinking 'Blimey she's a bit fit, I'm sorry to break your heart but she only likes women!

"I'm also married to your sister." Daniela told him the tears in her eyes starting to spill down her cheeks.

"Oh damn!! Sorry girls, I completely forgot. She's my sister in law as well!"

Daniela wiped her tears and took out her mobile. She found her wife's number and started to dial

Last edited by reptongeek (October 8, 2019 9:30 am)