Wedding

Friday Fiction, courtesy of The One-Minute Writer: Write a brief bit of fiction, with a wedding as the setting.

Ella had tired of always being the bridesmaid, but never the bride. Always pumping up her friends, telling them how beautiful they were, how lucky they were and what a great day it was, despite the tacky dress she was inevitably sentenced to.

Fuck that shit. Ella was just as deserving, and now it was her turn. Her favorite cake, chocolate with raspberry filling and buttercream frosting, was topped with miniature sugar doves and sitting on her grandmother's silver cake pedestal. In the back yard, the pathway to the big rock by the koi pond was strewn with lilacs and lined with candles. Ravi Shankar's sitar strummed in the background. She wore a giant calla lilly in her hair, and the mahogany satin strappy chemise that complemented her sun-kissed limbs.

Ella walked the stone path and knelt on the silk pillow on the big rock. The sun was just setting and cast its rosy glow over Ella, the orange-spotted koi, and her two white cats who sat in perfect attendance on either side. She read a poem by Rumi and a sonnet by Shakespeare, and then her vows.

"I, Ella, do hereby take myself, to be my greatest love and ally–to comfort, honor and keep, in sickness and in health, for richer, for poorer, for better, for worse, in sadness and in joy, to cherish and continually bestow upon myself my heart’s deepest devotion, as long as I shall live."