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Chapter 1 – Sadie
I've planned three hundred and forty-two weddings.
I know exactly how many because I've kept a detailed spreadsheet of every single one since I opened Fairytale Endings six years ago. Each wedding is categorized by season, theme, and budget. Each disaster documented so I'd never make the same mistake twice.
I've seen everything: drunk grooms making passes at bridesmaids, rings dropped into fountain champagne towers, mother-in-laws showing up in white, and one memorable incident involving a trained dove that turned out to be terrified of music.
I've seen every possible disaster. But I've never had a runaway bride.
Until now.
The ivory lace of my wedding dress feels like a straitjacket as I stare at my reflection in the antique full-length mirror.
The dress is perfect—of course it is. I designed every detail myself during countless appointments and fittings, each one accompanied by my mother's approving nods and Matthew's polite smiles.
From the sweetheart neckline that shows off my curves to the delicate beading that catches the light just so, creating patterns of shadow and sparkle across the bodice. My blonde hair is styled in soft waves, secured with my grandmother's pearl pins that Mom insisted would be my "something old." The makeup artist has worked minor miracles, giving me that ethereal bridal glow that my clients always ask for.
Everything is exactly as I've planned it.
Everything except the hollow ache in my chest that grows deeper with each passing minute.
I press my hand against my stomach, feeling the restrict of stays and boning beneath the lace.
The corset does its best to hold in my softer parts, though Matthew once had the audacity to say he “didn’t mind” my curves—"just wish there weren’t so many of them." Like my body was some kind of inconvenience he’d begrudgingly put up with.
"Five minutes, sweetie!" Mom's voice chirps through the door, high-pitched with barely contained excitement. "Matthew is waiting!"
Matthew. My perfectly adequate fiancé with his perfectly adequate job at his father's accounting firm and his perfectly adequate love that feels about as passionate as a dental cleaning.
Matthew, who proposed over dessert at Le Petit Bistro with a speech that sounded rehearsed and a ring that looked exactly like the ones in the window display we'd "casually" walked past three months earlier.
The bouquet of blush roses and white peonies sits on the vintage vanity, mocking me with its pristine perfection.
I'd spent hours with the florist, selecting exactly the right shade of pink to complement the bridesmaids' dresses.
Through the stained-glass windows, I can hear the string quartet playing Pachelbel's Canon in D. Right on schedule, because everything in this wedding is running exactly according to the timeline I created in my color-coded planning binder.
"This is fine," I whisper to my reflection, watching my lips move beneath the careful application of bridal pink lipstick. "This is what twenty-six looks like. This is growing up. This is being sensible."
But the woman in the mirror looks like she's drowning in tulle and expectations, her blue eyes wide with something that looks suspiciously like panic.
A knock at the door makes me jump.
"Sadie?" It's Karen, my assistant coordinator. I hired her fresh out of college two years ago, and she's never seen me anything less than completely composed. "We're ready when you are."
Ready. Am I ready?
My heart is hammering so hard I'm surprised it hasn't burst through the intricate lace bodice. The chapel suddenly feels too small, too warm, too everything. The roses are too sweet, their perfume mixing with the scent of beeswax candles until it's nearly suffocating. The music is too loud, each note of the quartet feeling like it's being played directly on my nerves.
The expectations are too heavy, pressing down on my shoulders like the weight of all three hundred and forty-two weddings I've planned.
"I just need a minute," I call back, my voice surprisingly steady despite the fact that I'm pretty sure I'm having a panic attack.
My hands are shaking as I brace them against the vanity, the cool marble beneath my palms the only thing that feels real.
I've seen panic attacks before. The bride who hyperventilated because her mother-in-law wore cream instead of beige. The groom who locked himself in the bathroom when he saw the final bill for the flowers.
But this feels different. This feels like my soul trying to claw its way out of my body, like every cell is screaming at me to run.
