The Marrying Type

by Laura Chapman

  She also had to review an article Libby put together for the e-newsletter going out later in the week.

  “We’re up a few more followers and fans today,” she said loud enough for Chase and Marissa to hear.

  “Have the new landing pages drummed up any business for you yet?” he asked.

  She nodded. “We’ve already had a handful of preliminary wedding consultations scheduled through our social media campaign. I have four more on deck for next week. Our email and phone contacts are up, too. Your website redesign breathed new life into our business.”

  “It’s the nicest wedding site I’ve ever seen,” Marissa said.

  Chase winked at her. “You’re more than a little biased.”

  “Maybe, but I love the ideas you came up with. I would have wanted one of the ‘Our Day,’ pages you’re setting up. We had wedding pages on other websites, but it’s so cool that you can have it in the same place as the other information.”

  While they were brainstorming the “Our Day” portion of the website, Chase had brilliantly suggested they create a public section, which couples could share with their guests to keep them updated on the latest news involving the event. Guests would be able to check the local forecast for the wedding, discover the best routes for getting to the wedding and reception venues, not to mention access the bridal registry from one website and mobile app.

  Even Walter had to admit the finished product was amazing.

  “I’m with your wife on this one,” Elliot said. “You’ve outdone yourself. I’m the lucky person who gets to benefit from it.”

  “You’re an easy client to please.”

  She’d tried her best to be easygoing throughout the process. The only time she’d cracked a little was when Chase brought up how much he liked the rotating quotes for the millionth time. The quotes were quickly becoming a sensitive subject. After hours of agonizing research to develop a state-of-the-art website, no one seemed overly impressed with the financial planning tools and calendar notices after they saw the quote ticker. The stupid thing had been an impulsive afterthought to fill empty space on the page. It hardly added any real value to the wedding planning process.

  She tried not to be offended, but out of the changes she wanted to make, she just didn’t get why people found this one element impressive.

  “Not to take away from the miracle you performed,” she said, “but deleting everything from the old page would have been an improvement. What you’ve created is a masterpiece.”

  “Let me play.” Marissa reached for the laptop, and Elliot obliged her. “You have a new message, subject ‘consultation.’ Want me to open it?”

  “Sure. Who’s it from?”

  “A newly engaged bride. She’s planning a wedding for Labor Day Weekend here in Charleston. She wants to schedule an appointment to meet with you and check out the house as a potential venue site.”

  “Labor Day this year or next year?” Elliot asked.

  “This year.”

  “Isn’t that cutting it a bit close?” Chase asked. “Our wedding took a year and a half to plan.”

  Elliot shrugged, pulling up the calendar on her phone to check if they had any bookings. Oddly enough the weekend was open. She’d need to double-check with Claire to make sure that wasn’t a glitch. Holiday weekends were usually some of the first to be booked.

  “It depends on how big they want to go and how much they’re willing to spend,” Elliot said. “You only need a license to get married—everything else is extra.”

  “I doubt they have to worry about money.” Marissa wiggled her eyebrows. “She’s marrying Adam Crawford.”

  “Of the Charleston Crawfords?” Chase asked.

  “The same. And the bride is Sadie Warner. Isn’t she your sister’s friend?”

  “If it’s the same Sadie Warner.”

  Elliot’s blood froze. Chase and Marissa continued bantering, while she tried to keep herself together. Perhaps Sadie Warner was a common name. Sure, she’d only encountered one Warner family in her past, but this had to be a coincidence. Taking a deep breath, Elliot resolved not to worry over nothing. The Warners from her past would never hire Engagements for a wedding.

  “Sadie Warner,” she repeated, keeping her tone casual. “The name sounds familiar. Where is she from?”

  “I doubt you’ve met her. She’s from Cleveland,” Marissa said, almost causing Elliot’s heart to stop. “She graduated from Duke last week. Her fiancé is moving back to Charleston to work for his family’s law firm, and she’s following him here. She writes, ‘My mom still lives in Ohio, and though my brother offered to help with the plans and finances, our guest list is out of control. We need a professional to help.’”

  “You realize her brother is Eric Warner, right?” Chase asked.

  “Wait, not the Eric Warner?” Marissa’s eyes lit up when her husband nodded. She barely paid attention to Elliot taking back control of the laptop to read the message herself. “You mean the social media guru who broke stock market records when he made his company public earlier this year?”

  “He’s still head of the board and active with development, but he seems to have more time for extracurricular activities.”

  “Like being a millionaire playboy?”

  “Maybe you mean a wealthy philanthropist who has enjoyed the company of a few eligible models.” Chase gave her a devilish grin. “And he’s a billionaire, not millionaire.”

  Marissa rolled her eyes. “Same thing.”

  “It’s a whole different—”

  “Whatever,” Marissa interrupted. “Wow. A billionaire. No wonder he’s offered to pay the bills. He must be loaded.”

  “He’s done well for himself,” Chase agreed. “On top of the substantial salary he’s still drawing and the sale itself, he’s diversified his portfolio with new projects.”

  Marissa tapped her chin. “I wonder if he’ll bring one of his girlfriends to the wedding. Maybe she’ll be famous, too. Can you imagine what having a celebrity on our show will do for ratings?”

  “We’ll have to get him to sign a release right away.” Chase pulled up their filming schedule and scanned the page. “We can reallocate some of the attention we planned to spend on these other weddings and put our focus on this one. The execs are going to love this new development.”

  “We should call them this afternoon.”

  “Can you imagine the ad revenue?”

  “We’ll make bank.”

  Elliot remained silent during the couple’s conversation and focused on taking deep breaths. The shock had yet to wear off. She was thankful to hide her face—and reaction—behind a computer screen.

  Elliot was familiar with the Crawfords. Her mother had planned their wedding years earlier. With the family patriarch planning a bid for the open U.S. House seat next fall, the wedding would no doubt draw attention. The local star power wasn’t the reason for her panic.

  She had reservations about the bride. They weren’t friends. They’d never met. But they had a mutual acquaintance.

  A major mutual acquaintance: her brother. Elliot hadn’t seen America’s most eligible—and sexy—social media guru since her first year of college. They had . . . a history. They’d been study buddies early in her first semester. Then they’d been more. A lot more. While she’d never met his family, he’d met hers. The results had been less than stellar.

  Before Elliot could stop herself, she opened a secret file on her laptop and pulled up a photo. In the picture—taken eight years ago—Eric and Elliot stood on the UVA grounds with their arms wrapped around each other. Eric had snapped the photo of them after their last day of class for the spring semester. The day before she brought him home to meet her family. The day before their seemingly perfect romance had fallen apart.

  She let out a short laugh. Wasn’t it strange to realize she had a photograph of the last time she’d been happy? The last time she’d felt truly loved?

  While they’d never met, Sadie Warner had to know ab
out Elliot’s history with her brother. If she did, why would she want her brother’s ex-fiancée to plan her wedding? Was this some dramatic plan to get back at Elliot and the rest of the Lynch family for a perceived slight?

  Elliot typed the couple’s names into a web search and scanned the results. Engagement notices appeared in their respective local newspapers and the New York Times. At least the wedding wasn’t an elaborate ruse for seeking out one of her brother’s exes. Even if Sadie harbored some ill-will toward Elliot, she wouldn’t use her own wedding as an excuse to settle the score. Would she?

  Chase and Marissa continued their plans to use the potential Warner-Crawford business to create must-see programming, and Elliot wondered how she should go about turning down such a potentially lucrative opportunity. Then Marissa made it impossible.

  “They have a six-figure budget,” Marissa gushed. “This wedding will be the splashiest event we have ever seen.”

  Well that settled it. Elliot had no way around the matter. Whether or not Sadie Warner intended to use this meeting as a platform to publicly ridicule her, Elliot had to schedule a consultation. If her father caught wind she’d turned down a six-figure customer without even having a face-to-face, he’d lose it.

  Elliot clicked reply.

  Ms. Warner,

  Congratulations on your recent engagement and your upcoming marriage. We’d love to meet with you to discuss your vision for your special day. What’s your availability on Thursday?

  There. She’d done her job. Now she had to sit back and wait for whatever came of this meeting. She snapped her laptop shut. When and why had her life gone from ridiculous to nearly impossible?

  BEFORE ELLIOT HAD A chance to share her news at dinner, Libby dropped a major bombshell. “The Dalrymples fired their event planners.”

  Elliot’s fork paused on its way to her mouth, leaving the bite of chicken suspended in the air. “Seriously?”

  Well-connected and in possession of a hefty disposable income, their parties were legendary. Rumor had it Fergie—the Duchess of York or the singer, no one remembered which one for sure—once called them America’s new Kennedys.

  “I wonder why,” Walter mused. “They’ve worked together for more than a decade.”

  “Apparently they had some drama.” Libby lowered her voice. “Apparently, they caught one of the employees sleeping with the youngest son.”

  “No,” Elliot gasped despite not wanting to get dragged into another family’s drama. “Can you imagine?”

  “Right? But here’s the big point: they’re hiring.” Libby’s eyes lit up at the prospect. “They plan to ‘audition’ individuals and agencies throughout the summer before signing a contract with their favorite before the end of the year.”

  “Sounds like Survivor or The Bachelor,” Elliot said. The idea had her souring on the business potential. No doubt landing the contract would change their lives, but at what cost? Sacrificing more of her time—and privacy—for a TV show was one thing. Sacrificing her dignity with no guarantee of a payout was another.

  “Having Darla Dalrymple for a client would bring in more than enough revenue to secure our future.” Walter tapped his chin as he weighed the options. Elliot practically heard him counting up the dollars and cents in his head. “Her sister-in-law is a senator, and her husband is a shipping tycoon. Their annual New Year’s Eve party is the biggest event of the year.”

  “If we can get one of those try-out events, we’d win them over,” Libby said. “If Weddings by Will comes to the East Coast, they’ll be our only real competition.”

  “But he doesn’t have our local contacts,” Walter said.

  “Weddings by Will plans to come to Charleston?” Elliot asked. “I figured he was content with taking over the West Coast.”

  “He has his sights on the East, now. He already has feelers out in New York and Boston,” Libby said. “One of my friends in the Big Apple said he made comments about wanting a presence in the south, too.”

  “Sounds like he’s trying to take over the wedding world.”

  “He’s building an empire.”

  Walter waved off their Weddings by Will chatter and returned to the Dalrymple gossip. “They’d be a game-changing client for us down the road.”

  “But what about the short-term?” Elliot asked. “I have a new business lead I wanted to discuss with both of you.”

  She filled them in on the Warner-Crawford request.

  “That’s nice, dear,” Walter said once she finished. “Sounds like you have everything covered. Schedule the consultation. Take the lead. You’ve earned the opportunity to be in charge.”

  Libby nodded. “You’ll leave us free to focus on landing the Dalrymple business, which won’t be easy. They’re traditional, and we can’t win them over with a website alone.”

  “I have a few ideas we should try,” he said.

  Elliot shook her head. There was no point drawing them out of their conversation or reminding them they’d met Eric. Maybe she should be glad they didn’t remember him or how they’d encouraged her to end her relationship with him years earlier.

  AT LEAST ONE PERSON seemed to understand Elliot’s predicament. Rosalyn cringed and shook her head while Elliot told her about the new business lead during coffee the next morning. “Are you sure the money is worth taking this job? Won’t it bring up bad memories?”

  “I’m fine.” Maybe Elliot would believe herself if she repeated the phrase a few more times. “It’s been eight years—plenty of time for a girl to recover from a breakup. Even if he might have been the love of her life.”

  Rosalyn frowned. “That’s a little dramatic.”

  “Sorry. I was trying to make a joke.”

  “What about him?” Rosalyn asked. “Have you followed any of the articles about his personal life? He’s been linked to some high-profile models and actresses, but he refuses to settle down with any of them. He wanted to marry you when he was barely old enough to drink. Legally, anyway. Now he won’t even commit. You’re a wedding planner—you should understand what that means.”

  “Maybe he got older and realized he didn’t want to settle down right away. Not when he had a growing business.”

  Elliot ignored her churning stomach. Of course she’d followed Eric’s career. She’d been proud of him when his website became a hit around the world. She’d even bought the Time Magazine with his photo on the cover. She’d always believed he would succeed—and he had.

  When he’d left college early to move to Silicon Valley, he’d asked her to take a chance on his company and him. She’d wanted to follow him, but ultimately hadn’t. That had been the end of their relationship.

  What did that matter now? He became a success. And she and her family were one late payment away from failure. He’d won.

  “Eric has to remember Engagements is my family’s business,” Elliot said. “If he has a problem with me planning his sister’s wedding, I’m sure he’ll tell her.”

  “Doesn’t his sister know who you are?”

  “Maybe, maybe not.” Elliot shrugged and stirred another packet of sweetener into her coffee. “I never met his family. I’m not sure how much he told them about me. Besides, it’s in the past. I bet Sadie doesn’t even remember who I am.”

  “I doubt that.”

  So did Elliot, but she didn’t want to acknowledge it, at least not out loud. “We’ll have to wait and find out for ourselves, won’t we?”

  From The Marrying Type Transcript

  Filmed: June

  Airing: September

  Announcer: After saying “yes” when her long-time boyfriend proposed, Sadie Warner quickly realized she needed some help walking down the aisle.

  Sadie: With less than four months to plan the wedding of my dreams and a guest list that has as many people on it as I had in my graduating class in high school, I needed someone else to take the lead. I want to enjoy my wedding without having to worry about whether or not I’ve ordered enough table linens or hired the
right band.

  Announcer: And what was it about Elliot Lynch that struck a chord with this bride-to-be?

  Sadie: The Engagements website popped up first when I did a search for local vendors. After reading a couple of Elliot’s blog posts and scanning the photos of her past events, I decided Elliot was the planner of my dreams. She’s the whole package. After I found out her mom planned my future in-laws’ wedding twenty-five years ago, the whole thing seemed like fate.

  Montage of old photographs from the wedding flash across the screen, including one of Kelly Lynch posing with two-year-old Elliot.

  Sadie (cont.): Tradition matters to my fiancé’s family, and this is a bond I can’t ignore. Going into this meeting with Elliot, I’m a mix of nerves and excitement. I hope she can fit me into her schedule. I hope she likes me.

  Announcer: Sounds like someone is hoping for love at first sight.

  Chapter Five

  “That is the true season of love, when we believe that we alone can love, that no one could ever have loved so before us, and that no one will love in the same way after us.”

  ~Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  TAKING A DEEP BREATH, Elliot gave her reflection in the mirror a final glance before stepping out of the spare room-turned makeup/interview room. According to Marissa’s latest text messages, it was time.

  The Warner-Crawfords are in the house.

  Briefing them on what to expect from this meeting.

  Camera ready in five.

  “Are you okay?” Chase asked, balancing the camera on his shoulder. “I can tell Marissa we need a few more minutes.”

  “I’m fine.”

  “You’re pale.”

  “I’m always pale.”

  “Yeah, but you’re paler than usual.”

  Rubbing her temples, Elliot sighed. Maybe she should jump on the opportunity to feign an illness and get out of filming the segment. No one was forcing her to meet Sadie Warner. No one said she had to take on this business. Sure, a short-order, six-figure wedding would add a lot to the Engagement coffers—not to mention her campaign to rebuild their dented reputation. But she already had a plan in place to fix her problems without landing this customer.