Our Family Wedding
Rory Gilmore tried to tamp down on the lump in her throat as she got out of her car and looked warily at her grandparents' house. "Do you think everything will be okay?" she asked her fiancée as she reached for her hand.
Paris Gellar's face was set in in a look of stony determination as she answered. "Don't worry Rory, we'll make them understand. One way or another."
Rory tried to take comfort in her girlfriend's words
but still heard herself gulping as she crossed the threshold.
"Rory, Paris," Emily said, after dismissing the maid, "how nice to see you both. At least now we know there will be four for dinner. God knows why your mother couldn't be here." Emily gave Rory a quick version of the Evil Eye, though the younger girl knew it wasn't directed at her.
"Actually Grandma," Rory said as they made their way through the foyer to the den, "I asked her not to come."
"Oh?" Emily enquired, her eyebrow rising. Thankfully, Richard chose that moment to greet them.
"Rory!" He gave his granddaughter a hug. "Paris, nice to see you again."
"Richard." Paris grinned, giving away her affection for the older man. Emily rolled her eyes at Paris' use of her husband's first name, but had the decency to keep her displeasure well hidden. Indeed, she chose a different tact altogether.
"So Rory, you asked your mother not to come with you tonight?" she asked after everyone was seated again. The unasked question "And why was that?" remained hanging in the air.
"Well, you see, Grandma," Emily noticed Rory's companion looking at her with concern. It looked as though she was trying to avoid taking Rory's hand for some reason. "You see Mom all the time and Paris and I have gotten… closer lately, so I thought perhaps you might enjoy spending more time with her as well." Rory ducked her head then, rather than looking Emily in the face. Just what was bothering the girl so much? Emily wondered.
Paris leaned forward, ready to interject. "Rory and I are a couple." It was then that Emily noticed the young woman fingering something in her shirt pocket. It was a ring, plain solid gold without any jewellery whatsoever. It was easier to see now that it was placed on Paris's finger.
"…And we're engaged." You could hear a pin drop in the ensuing silence. However, if any clumsy maid *did* drop a pin Emily surely would've fired her.
"Mom already knows about us of course." Rory said her voice hesitant. "That's why we felt she didn't need to come." Her face unscrewed itself from its' anxious look and fell back against the sofa, where Paris's waited to catch her.
"Well, congratulations." Emily said, smiling. The reaction on Rory's face was clearly one of shock. Paris, she noticed was smirking slightly. "Oh honestly Rory, did you think I couldn't handle this? I may be traditional, but I know about homosexuals. My hairdresser is one for God's sake-"
She was cut off by Richard who was rising again to give Rory another hug and offer Paris a handshake. "Emily is right; congratulations are most certainly in order." He said, laughing.
"Well," Emily said once they were seated again. "We have a lot of work to do."
"We?" asked Rory, her eyebrow creasing.
"Well, certainly!" Emily answered with a gleam in her eye. "We have a wedding to plan."
"Actually Grandma, Paris and I were thinking we'd like a simple wedding."
"Nonsense!" Emily countered. "No young woman wants a simple wedding; this will be the most important day of your life!"
Paris snickered a little, behind her hand. She couldn't help herself.
Unfortunately for Paris, Emily wasn't so lost in her planning that she failed to notice. "And just what is so funny, young lady?"
"Well," Paris replied, unable to rid her voice of mirth. "I rather think that there have been and will continue to be, more important days in our lives. Our graduation from Yale for example, or the day that I get into a good medical school."
"With that sort of attitude, it's no wonder you've had to wait so long to have a personal life." Emily scored with one of her patented cutting remarks.
"Well, I was counting the day I told Rory I love her as one of my most important days." Paris said softly, her voice trailing off abruptly. Her confidence had been shaken.
"Grandma, I really don't think it's appropriate for you to imply that Paris doesn't have her priorities straight. And besides-"
Emily cut her off again. "That's fine. I understand you girls are tired and tempers will no doubt flare. Let's just have dinner so you two girls can go home and sleep. We have a lot of work to do and we'll need to meet early tomorrow morning. You girls will need to be fresh for that."
"I can't believe her!"
"It's okay, Rory, Don't worry about that, it's late!" Paris tried to get her raging fiancée under control.
"She has no right to talk about you that way!"
"I know that." Paris said calmly. But I also know that she just wants you to be with someone who deserves you. I can understand that. I, of all people, can understand that."
"Besides," she added with a laugh, "You know how I get when I'm really upset. If I can hold my temper while Emily insults me, can't you do the same?" For me?| Paris asked smiling and closing the space between them.
Rory nodded her reticence and Paris smiled, kissing her. When they broke apart, Paris removed her shirt and climbed into bed. Rory was soon to follow.
The next day, the girls walked up the path to Emily's house with trepidation. Rory reached up to ring the bell, but she stopped when she heard Emily's voice coming from an unexpected place, around the side of the house. "There you two are! I thought you would never get here! Well, never mind, come around back."
The two young women quickly made their way into the back yard. They rushed to appease Emily, but they both came to an abrupt halt, staring, mouths agape, when they saw what was now taking up a significant amount of the yard's space.
Before them was a blinding white gazebo, standing at least three feet off the ground. "Well, do you like it? Raquel, my event planner, suggested tents but they're just so *gaudy* and well, after that, I realized that if we want this wedding to be done right we'll have to take care of it ourselves.
Rory's mouth still hung open. Shutting it abruptly, she tried to compute what was going on. "A gazebo, Grandma? Why-"
"Well, why not? "We'll have to have *somewhere* to put the guests in case of rain and the band can play there during the reception."
"Band?" Paris mimicked her fiancee this time.
"Yes, I have to apologize to you about that. I've put in a few calls and I've been trying to book the Boston Pops but they've been very unreasonable. Their people keep spewing some nonsense about how "they don't *do* weddings" as if we're not good enough, can you believe it? So I'm sorry, but we might have to go with a second choice. "Have you discussed your list of alternatives?"
Rory was barely able to recover herself as she stuttered out. "N-no, Grandma."
" Oh well, no matter. What have you two decided for your wardrobe? Should I commission for two dresses to be made, or merely one?"
Paris could tell that Rory's mind was reeling, and decided it was past time to rescue her love. "Emily, we haven't had the time to decide these things." In truth, she and Rory had discussed their plans for the wedding but they had been hoping for a much simpler affair.
Emily's face cavorted into a very intimidating frown. "We'll focus on the menu for the reception, then. There must be *something* you've worked on." By now, Emily's tone had changed from one of frazzled excitement to a slow, deadly calm murmur.
The rest of the day passed in an agonizing tempo. The girls were forced to admit that they hadn't planned for anything the way Emily expected and were then lectured over and over again about the enormous responsibility of planning a wedding and the benefits of proper organizational skills.
When Rory and Paris got home they were exhausted. "Don't worry about any of that tonight, love." Paris tried to soothe her outraged girlfriend. "We'll figure out something to get through to here in the morning.
"We most certainly will," Rory agreed; her face an implacable mask of rage. She sighed and got into bed next to Paris.
"Don't look at me like that," Paris said as she turned to look at her partner. With her own exasperated sigh, she rolled over, encroaching on Rory's space. "If you were with anyone but me, that look would scare them." She said with an eyebrow raised mockingly.
"Anyone but my grandmother, she'd just yell me down and order me to leave."
It was Paris's turn to sigh now, she hadn't seeing the love of her life so upset. "Don't think about that now." she in a calm whisper. "Just relax."
"I can't." Rory protested.
"Then let me help you." Paris drawled, gently positioning herself so she was lying on top of Rory. She lowered her lips to meet her lover's. The rest of that night was passed in relative quiet.
The next day, Rory went to meet her grandmother. Paris had offered to skip class so that she could offer moral support to the love of her life, but Rory refused her, knowing that a missed class in medical could lead to a pretty big hole in the student's knowledge which they would then spend an entire weekend trying desperately to close.
Also, Rory thought to herself, as she tugged nervously on her hair, she had to do this alone. Being the one and only one to communicate her feelings to Emily Gilmore was the only way she would get the point. If anyone else was present she would simply claim that the other person was trying to foist they're opinion on Rory. She had seen the same situation too many times with her mother.
Biting her lip, the young Gilmore said a silent prayer to a God she wasn't sure she believed in and rang the bell.
Rory couldn't even remember being shown in by the maid and before she knew she was lying in wait for her grandmother.
"Rory!" her grandmother greeted her, smiling. She seemed almost overjoyed to see her granddaughter. Rory winced inwardly, this was not going to be easy.
"Didn't Paloma offer you anything to drink?" her grandmother asked sharply, causing Rory to jump.
Shaking her head brusquely, Emily continued, not having noticed she startled Rory. "I may have to fire her! I know your grandfather will go on at me about my "inability" to keep help but honestly, look at the quality of people we're getting these days!"
Switching topics abruptly, Emily's tone and expression softened. "I'm sorry, Rory, what did you want to see me about today?"
"Grandma! I can't do this!"
"What? The wedding?" That Paris, did she do something to make you want to call it off." I was afraid she would-"
It was at this sharp rejoinder that something inside Rory snapped. She couldn't believe that her grandmother had the audacity to even think that Paris would do anything to hurt her, after the so called welcome Emily had given her into the family.
Rory felt all the tension, all the guilt and all the angry she felt at Emily well up within in her and she let it out in on ear-splitting scream.
"Stop!"
For a few seconds Emily stood their gaping and Rory couldn't help but think with some malicious joy that she looked like a dead fish.
"W-what?" Emily asked at last.
"I said stop." Rory replied evenly. "Stop everything. Immediately. Not just the wedding planning and the reception planning but the nagging, the questioning and most of all, the criticism of Paris. Paris has done nothing to make me doubt her love for me, let alone to make me want to cancel the wedding. If anything she has been the one keeping me from losing it. The fact that you can even infer that Paris is at fault here, makes me question whether or not you really ever accepted me.
I can't even begin to comprehend what you really meant by that ridiculous speech welcoming Paris to the family."
Emily's mouth snapped shut. Her lips pursed together and the expression on her face was unreadable to Rory.
"Well, I suppose this has been a long time in coming. I knew you would butt heads with me again, like you did when you turned twenty-one."
Rory took a step back, stunned. The contents of Emily's statement was certainly not what Rory had expected but what scared Rory the most, what managed to force it's way to the very core of her being was Emily's tone.
It sounded nothing like the grandmother she knew. Instead it sounded like that of a small child hurt beyond words, but there was also a world weary quality to it as though Emily had resigned herself to something that gave her immense pain.
Once the shock Rory felt in relation to Emily's reaction subsided, the meaning of Emily's words actually sunk in and she wasn't sure she liked what had been said.
"And just what does that mean?" Rory asked, scowling subconsciously.
With another sigh, this one seeming more irritated than sad, Emily said, "Only that you're mother treats me in exactly the same way."
"You've done enough already, without bringing Mom into this! This is between you and me and blaming Mom for my actions is simply another way of refusing to see me as I really am."
"I'm not blaming your mother, I'm trying to give her credit." Emily said, gritting her teeth slightly and attempting not to show it.
That shut Rory up. All she could do was stare blankly, as Emily continued.
"Lorelei's always had the ability take me on, in situations when no one else would. She can match me point for point in a debate and sometimes she even sways my opinion on an issue, it's one of the things I admire the most in her."
"It's also one of the things that makes me worry, for myself. Your mother's always been ready to tell the whole world who much she doesn't need us!
'Look at her, she's the perfect poster girl for parental independence! She's been on her own since she was just sixteen, never went to college and still managed to open and successfully run her own Inn! Can you imagine what an awful woman her mother must be, to have abandoned someone so creative at such a young age?"
Rory exploded now. "So now you're using my discussion with you about the way you behave towards me to fuel your own personal pity party against my mother? I don't think so!"
"Rory, please. I realize that might be the way it sounded, but that's not what I meant to do at all." Emily said, rushing to soothe Rory's feelings. She paused fo a few seconds, unsure how to continue.
"What I'm trying to say is, you have so much of your mother in you..." Emily swallowed, seeming holding back tears. "And that's a good thing. But given that you're both so independent, I suppose I feel like... if I don't this, if I don't do something to indebt you to me, what's going to keep you from leaving me also? I know you love your grandfather, but what about me?" she said, with something akin to a wail.
"Geez, Grandma…" Rory said, under her breath.
Ever the hawk, Emily heard her. "What was that?"
"You honestly think I could *ever* stay away from you? For starters you would hunt me down…" Rory said with a little laugh. She let that laugh linger a bit, until she saw her grandmother's face... then she bit her lip.
"Oh Grandma I'm sorry, you know I was just teasing."
"You have your mother's sense of humour too..." Emily muttered, but she was smiling.
The wedding wasn't perfect. Rory accidentally stepped on the hem of the white sundress Paris chose to wear and nearly caused her bride to trip. Paris managed to catch herself just in time however and the incident was quietly laughed off.
Paris's more traditional relatives were put off by the mounds of macaroni and cheese that was available alongside the prime rib and both the brides' had to hide their exasperated amusement as they waltzed their first dance to the traditional wedding waltz as performed by, who else, the Boston Pops, but in the end none of it mattered. In the end, Paris and Rory were the two people who remembered the day best and it wasn't because of the food, the gifts or even the warmth showered on them by their guests.
It was a simple moment: the look of love and confidence that the two women shared as they reached the end of the aisle, reaching out to grasp eachother's hands as they waited in the stillness for the ceremony to begin.