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If she had her way, this would be a trip to someplace to fill out paperwork and be done with the whole thing.
But no. Finan insisted on a proper, fun wedding.
“We’ll go out of the country, not one of your family members would come to something so far out of the way. It’ll be fun Mari!” Finan had said. He knew her feelings about her family. And he knew their feelings about him.
A divorcee with two kids? That nearly caused her grandmother to have a heart attack on the spot, the Catholic old witch who still complained about all the divorces in the royal family (because, of course, the old bat was a monarchist). When her little shit of a brother found out Finan divorced because of an affair with his own sister-in-law, Mari was disowned from the family for her choice in boyfriend.
They didn’t see how sweet he was, how well he cared for his sons even when all the relationships in his family imploded. They didn’t see how upset and awful he felt about everything that happened. In truth, Mari thought Finan would never want to get married and she was okay with that. When Finan proposed on their holiday to Spain last year, she was content to be his partner for they were already married in all the ways that mattered.
Not that she didn’t like the thought of a white wedding dress and celebrating their love with his extended group of friends, who quickly became her family in all the way that matters. If Osferth had learned to private his Facebook account, her horrid family would never have been aware of their engagement.
So they insisted on invitations and olive branches, and after many long talks with Finan about it, she decided her parents would be invited on the condition of good behavior. Especially after Finan suggested the idea of getting married in Niagara Falls. It was an ocean away, and for destination weddings it was an odd choice. It was all in the hopes of her family not bothering to show, knowing her friends from Coccham would go to the wedding no matter where it was.
All hopes were shot when they booked into their rooms at the hotel and saw her parents, siblings, cousins, aunts, and uncles and aged grandmother looking stiff-lipped and haughty in the lobby.
“I’m going to swim off the falls.” Mari whispered to Finan, hiding her face in the back of his shoulder.
“I’ll join you.” He whispered back, giggling.
Her family politely said their hellos just to her. Finan took it well, keeping Mari’s arm wrapped in his own. He could have sworn her grandmother spat on the ground near his feet with the excuse of a cough.
Mari already felt exhausted, and overwhelmed. “They all fucking came! From Cardiff. How could they convince a plane to fly my grandmother without fear angels would carry her off the second she got in the air?”
“Well, she’s survived the demons while being on the ground long enough.” Finan muttered. “We’re going to have a good reception dinner tonight with all our friends, and if they ruin it we can party in our hotel rooms. We’re going to get married tomorrow, in the gardens like you always wanted, and it’s going to be great. Then we can hit the casinos.”
“You certainly know how to treat a lady.” Mari giggled, leaning up to press a kiss to his lips. If they weren’t in the hallway of a hotel, Mari would be content to stay there until this weekend was over. It was when Finan gently cupped the back of her head, deepening the kiss, did reality smack her in the face.
She pulled back with a gasp. “They don’t know! Oh god, we have to get them together, now.”
Finan stared at her confused. “What?”
“Our friends don’t know my family is here, and my family doesn’t know about you know what.” Mari grabbed his hand, bringing it to her abdomen.
His noise of understanding quickly turned into a wince. “Right. Can’t let your family know we’ve been living in sin after three years of dating and two years of living together.”
Mari sighed, smacking him on his chest. His stupid, firm chest. She pulled out her phone, typing into their wedding group chat. “Come on, everyone should be here. Secret meeting in our room, now.”
Their room felt small when so many people were crammed into it.
Uhtred and Gisela, Sihtric and Ealswith, Beocca and Thyra, Brida and Young Ragnar, and Osferth, Hild, and Eadith were all standing around together while Mari tried to remain calm.
“How did they get here? I didn’t even know they knew where the hotel was.” Sihtric asked, arms crossed.
“Doesn’t matter, but we have one big ground rule,” Mari said. “The most important thing is no one say anything about my pregnancy at the wedding.”
“Absolutely, because we haven’t shared that yet and a certain crone would get offended.” Finan confirmed.
It’s not like they expected to get pregnant four months before her wedding, and it would not have been a big deal if her family hadn’t decided to ruin everything.
Everyone nodded, agreeing. Thyra shot her hand up though. “Question?” She asked.
“Dear, you’re not around your kindergartners.” Beocca said sweetly, gently taking her elbow down.
“Oh, right. Habits.” Thyra shrugged. “What was the plan if you were going to tell them about the baby after the wedding?”
“We had planned on not telling them, but someone still doesn’t know how privacy settings work.” Finan remarked.
Osferth held up his hands in mock surrender. “Hey, I got to social media late. Seminary school was a busy time. How was I supposed to know her family would be looking at my stuff?”
“Because they are crazy!” Mari fumed. “Make sure to tell the Young Uhtred, Stiorra, and Sigtryggr. Where are they, even?”
Uhtred and Gisela, already dressed up for the day in a suit and pretty red dress respectively, stood up. “They are helping Erik and Aethelflaed get ready.” Uhtred said. “Their wedding is tonight.”
Mari’s eyes felt like they were going to pop out of her skull. Finan was shocked too. They looked at each other, perplexed, and turned back to Uhtred.
“What is my coworker doing here with your boss’s daughter?” Finan wondered.
“They’re getting married, I thought they sent out invites to everyone.” Uhtred continued, despite Gisela tugging at his arm trying to hush him up. “They mentioned wanting to get married outside of London, I couldn’t believe it was the same weekend and place. What a coincidence.” Gisela flicked him on the cheek. He looked stunned at her, and more so at her indignation.
“I can’t fucking believe they stole my wedding idea. I spoke to Erik once about it.” Now it was Finan’s turn to be angry.
Uhtred realized what he was saying, and realized his family was probably the only one invited. Everyone else’s faces were already exhausted. Hild held her face in her hands, Eadith was red with embarrassment, and Brida looked ready to throw punches.
“I’m going to kick his ass.” Ragnar announced. Brida nodded in agreement.
Osferth and Hild both started to argue with them about not causing a scene, Gisela started snapping at Uhtred once she realized neither of them had thought to tell their friends about being invited to another weekend at the same place, and Ealswith turned her wedding ring to show clearly while Sihtric patted her baby bump.
At least they’re not living in sin, Mari hoped the sight of an unmarried pregnant woman would make her grandmother drop dead, but it would have to be up to her for that to happen.
“Quiet!” Finan’s voice was deep and loud, hushing the group in an instant. “We are going to be normal and polite at the dinner tonight. No mention of the pregnancy, I don’t want to hear about Erik at all, and we’re going to come back and drink until we can’t remember our own names. Like regular people.”
“Except Mari!” Thyra noted.
Finan sighed.
“Everyone, be appropriate! And godspeed.” Beocca declared, clapping his hands together.
Mari frowned. Of course she couldn’t drink this weekend, godspeed indeed.
The dinner was meant to be an intimate affair with her friends and their grown children, but with the appearance of his soon to be in-laws, Finan worked hard to keep a smile on Mari’s face. It was difficult, but an hour in and two glasses of champagne down, she was giggling and chatting just fine.
Stiorra was regaling her with a tale of Osbert tripping up the stairs that morning while he tried to physically stop her by clamping his hand over her mouth, when Uhtred reminded him it was time for his speech. His pre-wedding speech, which he had written with details her family would not be keen on.
Tapping his knife on the side of his glass to get everyone’s attention, he decided if they were here they must assume some sinful details. That most people considered normal for twenty-first century dating, but he wasn’t going to let them ruin his speech.
“I want to say how happy we are that all of you are here tonight. And I want to especially thank those of you who traveled from far away to be here with us tonight,” Finan trailed off a little, carefully not looking at Mari’s family while Sihtric sniggered. “Four years ago, my best friend in the whole world, Uhtred,” he tipped his glass to the man, who grinned widely and held his glass of wine up to him. “Invited his new coworker to our weekly game night. I was a little annoyed at first, I’ll be honest.”
That brought some laughter from his friends, and in honesty he was. How ridiculous was Uhtred to invite a relative stranger to his house for a round of Mario Party and drinking? Uhtred insisted she was a nice person, Gisela liked her, and she needed friends. Finan had spent half the night eyeing her from behind his Guinness, watching how easily she enchanted his friends and melded into their group.
It was when she absolutely destroyed him in Mario Party that he vowed revenge. The next week, she beat him in pictionary. The week after that, she always scored higher in every jackbox game they played, and on the third week he challenged her to a drinking game. She was good. She went shot for shot for an hour before unceremoniously vomiting in Ealswith’s rose garden.
It was Brida slapping him, for she was also drunk, and calling him a dickhead for him to realize how rude he was being. So he invited her for a coffee that weekend, realized how beautiful she was, and he was lost from that moment on.
“She put up with me, and my massive crush on her. It took me half a year to realize she also saw me as more than a friend. I can now admit in front of all our friends that I switched bus routes just so I could hang out with you twice a day when I didn’t have any good excuse to be bothering you.”
Mari stared up at him, with her eyes that could capture his soul. It was like they were the only two people in that room, him recounting those early moments of affection and ridiculousness. He never thought he deserved another love in his life, having ruined it twice over. It took him a long time to admit that to her, and she loved him anyway.
“It felt like too long a time having all these little moments with you. All our friends said I was crazy and should have said something earlier and I ache for that time we could have had together if I hadn’t decided to dislike you for being better than me at Nintendo games. Now, I get to live with her, spend all my days with her, and that’s more special than anything else I have ever gotten to do.”
“I love you too.” Mari smiled at him, taking his free hand to kiss his knuckles.
Finan would never get enough of her, and pretty soon his family would get that much bigger. Her dress hid her pregnancy well, even five months along she could hide it. His two sons would have a new sibling when they weren’t with his ex-wife, and he’d get to prove to himself that he could still be a good dad. He was so proud, it was almost unbearable.
“So,I would like to propose a toast. So if you’d all raise your glasses. Not Mari, for obvious reasons, but everyone else. If you would raise your glasses,” Finan said, looking out over to his friends who stared at him wide-eyed in surprise.
“Why can’t Mari drink?” Her grandmother inquired, voice cracking like broken glass.
“What?” Finan almost dropped his glass. Mari’s mouth fell open the moment she heard, face steadily getting redder. I can save this! “Mari can’t drink? I shouldn’t have said that…” He stammered. His friend’s faces confirmed he indeed was not saving this.
“No, she’s -” Finan looked wildly around the room, feeling like if he didn’t look at Mari’s family he could somehow be saved. His eyes fell on Gisela, who was mouthing something at him.
Antibiotics! Gisela mouthed. Antibiotics!
He stared at her, trying to piece it together. “An alcoholic?”
Gisela tilted back in her chair, swigging from her wine glass and shaking her head. “I tried.” She whispered to Uhtred, barely audible.
“What?” Mari’s father looked over at her with disgust, and Mari felt like she wanted to shrivel up and die.
“No, she’s not an alcoholic. Why did I say that? No, um. She’s just pregnant.” Finan started rambling. The drinking and the nerves were getting to him. “Oh, antibiotics!” That’s what Gisela was saying!
Uhtred stood up then. His friend was floundering, Mari looked about ready to cry under her father’s furious eyes. He loudly cleared his throat, motioning for Finan to sit down. “Ok. Hey, what I think Finan is trying to say is that they obviously care about each other, they’ve been living together for years-”
“They were living together?” Mari’s grandmother asked, horrified.
“Yes, and you know what-” Stop, stop, don’t argue with a woman with one cloven hoof in the grave, “you can’t expect people to not live together when they’re in love. They were getting married anyway. My own daughter is living with her boyfriend, it’s normal.”
As Uhtred finished, the room fell eerily quiet. He was still holding up his wine glass, and now Stiorra was also embarrassed.
“Sit down.” Gisela whispered, tugging him by the sleeve into his chair. The creaking of the wood below him was the only sound until Mari’s family all stood up, and left without a word.
Finan could slap himself. It was me? How could I have been the one to let it slip. Under the table, he felt Mari grab his hand tightly. Her father slammed the door behind them, but that didn’t stop them all from hearing the indignant yelling on the other side.
Ealswith, ever the conciliator, stood up and raised her champagne glass. “Cheers, we can finally get this party started!”
The drinking continued in their rooms, while Mari and Ealswith retired early after deciding a little mom’s time was appropriate following Mari’s family leaving the hotel entirely. They were watching Mari’s favorite Ryan Reynolds movie, The Proposal, and eating chocolates while reminiscing about Betty White when they heard a knock on the door.
“Mari! I need help!” Sihtric slurred, banging on the door again.
Huffing, she threw the covers off of her, scattering chocolate wrapping on the floor. Opening the door, she had to jump back to avoid being potentially crushed as Sihtric almost fell. In his arms was Eadith.
“Ouch, you dick that hurt!” Eadith looked thoroughly buzzed, eyes drooping and cheeks flushed. “I think I broke my wrist doing a handstand for Osferth.” As if to prove her point, she held up her hand. It was already starting to bruise.
“And?” Ealswith joined her, staring with some small amount of disappointment at her husband trying to hold himself up using the wall.
“We’re all too drunk and you’re the only one who can drive?” Eadith fluttered her eyelashes, trying to look cute despite the numbness in her face. “Pretty please?”
“I don’t have a license. And I also only know how to drive on the other side of the road.” Ealswith responded.
Mari sighed for what felt like the thousandth time that day. “Let me get my keys.”
One emergency room trip later, and Eadith’s wrist was indeed broken. Her friend complained the entire car ride about how difficult it was to get Osferth’s attention. His politeness was bothering her, and so she tried to show him how to do a handstand. While drunk. She had also managed to kick Young Uhtred in the face while he was asking Osferth about becoming a priest.
“I know, but these things take time, yeah?” Mari was tired, but at least Eadith’s ramblings were amusing at least. She had barely slept the week before leaving, and now it was well past midnight with a busy morning to follow. Since she was getting married, but everything was already a shitshow.
“I have a shitty family too, don’t worry. I get it.” Eadith hummed. She hung her head out of the passenger window, letting the cool air stir some sobriety. “I can’t imagine that conversation with my own family. He’s a priest, I’d say. Can’t imagine the rest.”
Mari was about to pepper her with more questions on her crush, but pulling into the hotel lot she saw fire trucks and sirens. “What on earth?” Everyone was outside of the hotel, and she quickly parked. Her group of drunk people was easy to find, but what was surprising was the other group of drunk people milling about.
“I’m sorry, how was I supposed to know it had fire in it?” A tall, broad man complained.
“Sigefrid, it was an actual torch.” She recognized the blonde man frothing at the mouth, and his shouts were clear above the sirens. “You literally set my wedding reception on fire!”
“It’s okay, you got the vow part out of the way.” Sigefrid replied. Erik smacked the back of his head.
“Dear, it’s okay. My parents are talking with the hotel’s insurance. The gardens aren’t too badly damaged. And we did get the important part out of the way” A woman in one of the most gorgeous wedding dresses she had ever seen walked up to the pair, wrapping her arms around Erik. That was definitely Aethelflaed.
Finan saw Mari’s crestfallen look when she overheard their conversation. He lightly stumbled through the crowd of hotel guests and his friends milling around. The smoke alarms going off suddenly sobered him up a little, but what really brought him back was the conversation he knew he would have once Mari returned. The location of their wedding was now, or had been, in flames.
Mari did start crying then, fat tears rolling across her cheeks as she stomped away from everyone. Once she started, it got harder to shove the feelings back down.
“Hey, it’s okay.” She heard Finan say as he wrapped his arms around her waist, hugging her from behind. He kissed the side of her neck, her temple, and her cheek before settling his chin on her shoulder. “We’re getting married tomorrow, doesn’t matter where we do it.”
Mari cried, relaxing into his hold. “It’s not just that. Everyone’s driving me crazy. I know way too much about what Eadith wants to do to Osferth, my family will hate me and you and our unborn child forever, and your idiot coworker copied our wedding.”
Finan turned her around, cupping her cheeks in both hands. He wiped away the tears left on her face with his thumb, and kissed her nose before pulling their foreheads together. Their noses brushed each other, and she followed his lead when he took in deep breaths to help calm her racing heart.
“This is supposed to be our wedding day. It’s three in the morning, it is our actual wedding day and now we don’t even have a place to do it.”
Finan had an idea then. He tugged Mari into a firm kiss, taking her breath away from the sheer intensity of it. “Plan B, grá mo chroí.”
Mari figured out ten hours later, once they were standing on the deck of a ship, that “Plan B” stood for “Plan Boat.” The water of Niagara Falls misted up at them, with splashes from the falls making the deck so horribly slippery that Beocca almost tumbled off. Her wedding dress was soaked through even with the plastic raincoat they were all wearing, and everyone besides her and Ealswith were horribly hungover.
When she finally got to kiss Finan as her husband for the first time, she decided at that moment it was all worth it.