You could say that weddings are one of the last bastions of courtly romance; often blown out of proportion by caterers, decorators, dressmakers and the ilk. Little girls, as grossly stereotyped by popular culture, dream of their perfect white wedding, the perfect groom, the perfect princess wedding dress, the perfect cake, etc etc etc. So it's quite understandable that Sarah Williams, the 'little girl in a grown-up's body' was standing at the altar of the perfect wedding, the groom smiling and happy, and the four-tier wedding cake not far in the distance.

Sarah's dress, of course, was not the snowy white of her dreams, it was a deep ruby red (Grandma Josephine would call it a 'hussy red', but Grandma Josephine wasn't there, she'd passed away quite suddenly weeks before), which set off her still-girlish burnished brown locks and innocent green eyes. The groom, upon closer inspection was quite a bit older than young Sarah Williams; one could almost say, old enough to be her father.

Oh, wait. That's because he was.

Sarah shifted imperceptibly as she stood to the side of the altar, her reluctantly-worn dress shoes pinching her poor toes, which were, almost audibly, screaming at her to take the horrible shoes off. She had voted for a renewal ceremony to be at the beach, where they could all be barefoot and casual, but, as this wasn't her wedding and her stepmother rarely, if ever, took her opinion into account, she was overruled and the showy church wedding was planned for late August.

Karen always did have a flair for the dramatic. Because of this, three quarters of the wedding party had been waiting for her arrival for quite a few minutes; the organist was starting to improvise strains of "O When the Saints" into the Wedding March and Cousin Jimmy had gone to the "bathroom" four times already (everyone knew what he was doing, he wasn't fooling anyone). The audience, er, the wedding guests, were assembled in the massive church hall, every pew filled to bursting with people known (and not know, as it were) to the Williams family and yet they were waiting patiently. Sarah's guess was that they were waiting for the reception, as it had a free open bar and a huge wedding cake, or at the very least they were waiting to see what the commotion was all about with the 'society wedding of the season'. Whatever a season was.

As Sarah started to pluck at the white rose petals of her bouquet again, telling herself that this was for a good cause (family ties?), the soft background music sudden burst into full "pay attention to me!" volume, causing quite a start with the audience, er guests. Lucy Kimball had the grace to fall out of a pew where she had been nodding off. Thankfully they were sitting in the back, off of the left aisle, not the main aisle. Rather awkward family, those Kimballs. The ostentatious doors did not just gracefully glide open, but were flung open and behold! a vision in white stood demurely in the opening, her head tilted just so, her graceful white dress flowing to floor, her bouquet of baby's breath and red roses clutched firmly in front of her.

Sarah rolled her eyes and covertly checked her watch.

Ten minutes later, Karen arrived in front of the preacher, her long train just now clearing the entrance, finally allowing the ushers to slam the doors (they really must look at those hinges). She handed her bouquet into Sarah's waiting hands and she and Robert faced the priest. Robert still held the same look of adoration on his face, making it clear that he would have waited another century for his new wife to come down the aisle. To Robert's left stood Charlie, Karen's nephew from New Hampshire. He and Robert were just barely acquaintances, but Toby had, quite inconveniently, come down with the chicken pox and had to stay home, so Charlie had stepped in. He wasn't such a bad fellow, average height, average build, average looks…in fact, he was a very average sort of guy. Next to Robert's internal glow of happiness, though, he looked sallow and disheartened. Sarah decided to grill him for information after the reception. It was either focus on other things going on or pay attention to the ceremony.

It was fortunate (unfortunate?) that Karen and Robert were able to get a priest very much like the abbot from the movie "The Princess Bride". He really did have a similar speech impediment, and talked at a rather slow pace. If he was the same guy, he could make a fortune as an impersonator!

"Dear-we bewoved, we are gav-werd here to-day…"

By the end of the ceremony, Sarah's feet had stopped talking to her altogether and she began to worry that they would refuse to help her out by guiding her down the aisle. She began to eye Charlie's back, thinking that perhaps he could give her a piggy-back ride and save her feet from humiliation. She was distracted by her thoughts by the abbot, er priest, presenting the couple to the masses. Robert and Karen turned to face everyone, their happiness and (gag) love for each other evident. Sarah pasted on a smile and started to count the minutes until she could run for her plane back to Philadelphia. Not that there was anything more interesting that a dead-end job and a goldfish waiting for her, but it was better than being lonely in a crowd.

Lost in her own thoughts, Sarah almost missed the cue to grab Charlie's arm and start down the aisle. She was saved only by an untuned key in the organ which made her start forward, conveniently grasping for purchase on Charlie's arm.

"Are you going to make it, Sarah?" Charlie inquired in a hushed, almost reverent tone, somewhat formally. Of course, having just met his cousin-by-marriage hours before, the situation called for formality. At least, until the wine was broken out.

"My feet hate me right now." Sarah whispered back, trying not to tumble down the mile-long aisle, the doors far in the distance and getting farther away by the moment. If she had stopped to consider things, she would have made the comparison of unreality with her adventure in the Labyrinth…how nothing was what it seemed.

"Oh. I'm sorry to hear that. Perhaps they will like you better after several hours of drinking and dancing." Charlie said with a wide grin, his pretense of formality slipping, as he started to see his cousin for more than just a hussy in a red dress (Grandma Josephine liked to share her opinion with anyone who had ears...and some who didn't).

"Oh God, are we there yet?" Sarah paused, squinting at the door. They must have been going a mile an hour. Of course, they had to wait for the train to be let out of the building before they could proceed.

As Sarah contemplated the poor decision making skills of her Payless personal shoe-shopper, she was completely oblivious to the eyes following her every move as she tottered down the aisle, leaning heavily on her cousin. Of course, now that the bride had exited the church, well, all except her train, every one of the guests were bursting with impatience to get to the booze, cake, and bathrooms. So, of course, if Sarah were a voodoo pin cushion, she'd be dead now. Or, perhaps there already was a fan in the audience and they were focusing on her feet. It could happen, it was, after all, Louisiana.

One pair of eyes in particular watched her contemplatively. Not, as some would think, haughtily or with malice, but…thoughtfully. Jareth (yes, that Jareth) sat towards the back, his arms crossed, his pants not as tight as some might like, his hair more sedate, not so…glam rock. Because of a rather unfortunate promise made while inebriated he had chanced to be in this small church outside of Alexandria, Louisiana, observing a wedding of people he didn't know, nor care to know. But, as fate would have it, he found one thing to hold his interest – and she was tottering down the aisle, like a drunken sailor, on the arm of his date.