I frowned, deep in thought, as I stared at the calendar on the coffee table in front of me. When, when, when?

"It would be so beautiful if you did it in winter," said Nelly helpfully. "Imagine it snowing as you're—"

"Absolutely not," said Ed, cutting across her. "What if it DID snow, and not just pretty flurries, but a full-out blizzard? We'd be stuck here and screwed. No way. Winry, cross out December, January, and February right now."

"She does have a poin—" I began.

"Not in winter," he said firmly, taking the pen out of my hand and the calendar from the table.

"Cross out May," I instructed.

"Why May?" he asked, flipping to that page and hesitating over it. "May is pretty. My mom's birthday was in May."

"'...and you'll surely rue the day,'" Nelly recited. "If you were a woman you would know that, Ed."

"Superstition?" Ed snorted. "That's a ridiculous reason not to do it in May."

I snatched the calendar back from him and firmly crossed out May. "I don't care how ridiculous it, is, Edward Elric. If we go with the superstition and it turns out to be nonsense, we've lost nothing. If we go against the superstition and it ends up carrying weight, we've made a terrible mistake and we really will rue the day. May is out."

"Harry and I chose springtime," said Nelly's mother, Carol, as she came back into the room with the tea. Nelly scooped up the magazines to make a space for the tray on the table, then her mother set it down. "It's nice to do it when all the flowers are in bloom."

"Flowers bloom in summer, too," I said, "and summer is warmer and less rainy."

"I've always hoped to do it in summer, myself," said Nelly, a little dreamy-eyed at the idea.

"Well, it can't be fall," I said firmly, crossing off November and October.

"Why not?" asked Ed.

"Fall has connotations of death," I said, giving him a look. "Everyone knows that. How can you even consider fall as an option? I mean, really!"

Ed rolled his eyes and stood up, stretching. "I don't understand you," he sighed, then left the room.

I stared after him, then when he was gone I looked back at the calendar. "How's July?" I queried Nelly and Carol.

"...'in July with flowers ablaze, bittersweet memories in after days,'" recited Nelly promptly. "It's out of the question, Winry."

"July is dead summer anyway," said Carol. "You'll be sweating your eyeballs out."

"June?"

Nelly turned to her mother. "What's the one for June again?"

"...'in month of roses June, life will be one long honeymoon,'" said Carol. "That might work."

"Well, my birthday is in June," I said. "It's on the twenty-fifth, so I think I'll space it out and put it in the first week of June." I flipped to that month and put a big haphazard circle around the first nine-ish days. "Which day exactly, do you think?"

"Monday for health; Tuesday for wealth; Wednesday best of all..." Nelly began.

"I know the rest of the rhyme," I said when she paused for breath to continue. She fell silent. I stared at the calendar for a long time. "I don't really know," I said finally. "We have a long time yet, anyway. We'll set it in stone later." I flipped the calendar closed and deposited it on the mountain of magazines and things that were already on my poor abused coffee table.

"I wish he hadn't already vetoed yellow as a color. I'd like to have some sunny yellow flowers, you know? I like the mental picture of honeysuckle and baby's breath."

"Honeysuckle is June's birth flower," said Carol as she picked up a different magazine. "You know, they're not always yellow."

"'They're close enough,'" I quoted gruffly, making a poor imitation of a male voice. "So I was thinking maybe blue? What kinds of flowers are blue?"

"Hyacinths can be blue," said Nelly.

"Forget-me-nots," said Carol. "Irises. Flax. Violets. Cornflowers. Chicory. Some hydrangeas. Morning glories. Lupines. Asters. Any of those sound good?"

"Wow, Mom," said Nelly, impressed. "What a list."

I flipped through the pages of the magazine in my hand. "Any idea which of those will be blooming in June?"

This time, Carol didn't look so certain. "I know hydrangeas will, and forget-me-nots probably, though they're not good for holding out once cut."

"We can work around that," I said, waving my hand. "Forget-me-nots mean as their name suggests, right? That's one to look into. Nelly, write it on the list. Also write flax, cornflowers, hydrangeas, and heather. Write ivy; it's not blue, but if we can get it I want it. Orange blossoms. If we can work them into the color scheme I want those too, mostly for the meaning."

"If you're looking for meanings as well, don't forget peonies," said Carol. "And how about stephanotises?"

"What does a stephanotis look like?" I asked.

"Five pointed petals, white," said Carol, flipping through magazines in a rush to find a picture. "If you go with hydrangeas, they'll look really pretty together, but they might clash with forget-me-nots due to a slight undertone of yellow... Here it is!" She passed me the magazine.

"I like it," I said after a moment. "Nelly, write stephanotises on the list. How many possibles do we have on there now?"

"...five, six..." Nelly mumbled, "nine. Winry, we've got nine."

"Okay," I said, "cross off cornflowers. Too much of a wild look about them."

Nelly slashed across them violently, grinning. I could tell she was having fun.

"Let me see what we've got, Nell," said Carol, holding out her hand for the notebook. She read the list and circled a couple things. "Actually, Winry, you could still do cornflower. Imagine heather, baby's breath, and cornflowers together. Imagine them dripping from every angle. Imagine how pretty those would look outdoors? Wild-looking flowers could work for you yet."

I shook my head. "No, I've decided. Cross out heather and baby's breath, too. I want a put-together feel. Which reminds me, Nelly, how do you feel about chiffon?"

"Chiffon for the dresses? Sounds pretty."

"Chiffon does have good hang," said Carol. "What about ruching? That would look pretty, don't you think? I saw some really nice red ruched chiffon dresses with a silk sash round the middle, hang on, let me find it; it's in one of these."

"Mom, that sounds somewhat expensive," said Nelly.

"Money isn't a problem." I brushed that idea off with a wave of the magazine in my hand. "Carol, once you've found the dresses you're looking for, circle stephanotises and hydrangeas on that list. I like those."

"Winry, look at this one!" Nelly waved me over.

"What did you find, Nell?" I asked.

She pulled the dress from its place on the rack and pulled aside the white cover (she had already unzipped it) to show it to me. "Strapless, and look at the accents on the bodice! Gorgeous."

"Gorgeous," I agreed, giving it some hard thought.

"Do you want to try it on?" she asked.

I was quiet for a minute. "Um, no," I said finally. "The gold just won't go."

"Oh, right," said Nelly. "He already said no to any yellow, didn't he?"

"That's right," I said.

"Well, we'll keep looking," she said, and we both drifted away again. Next, I found something very simple, but it didn't seem to call out to me. Plus, the sleeves were much too conservative. Again, I wished my mom had left behind her dress before she died. I would have certainly taken hers to a tailor and used it for mine. Well, what's done is done.

"Can I help you?" asked an employee from behind me.

I turned around, a little startled, until I realized who it was. "Oh! Yes, that would be wonderful."

"Do you have an idea of what you're looking for?" she asked.

I nodded. "I'm thinking something with a hint of blue to match everything else, preferably strapless—he likes me in strapless things—and I hope for a little sparkle, too."

"I have an idea," she said, and she went to a rack, producing a strapless dress with colored beading all the way down the bodice, trailing down the hip and left leg, stopping before it reached the hem. "I believe this one also comes in ivory, and the beading can be this shade of lilac, or something a little pinker. What do you think?"

"I'll try it on," I said.

Nelly came over to see what I was trying on, but when she saw it on me, she frowned. "I don't think so, Winry. I don't think the cream color fits."

"It also comes in ivory," I informed her.

"Still, it's too lavender; not blue enough."

"Good point," I said, and I went to take it off again.

The next one we found was nice enough, but I didn't like it for the mermaid style. I felt like I was going to fall over or something.

Seventeen or so dresses later, we were ready to call it quits for the day. There were two more I wanted to try on from this place, then Nelly and I were going to leave the store and look elsewhere.

I was poking through the rows and rows of dress bags, not really expecting to find anything, when I pulled down the zipper of a random bag and stumbled across The Dress. You just know it when you see it.

It was strapless, satin, A-line, in the perfect shade of icy white, with perfect jewels on the bodice and an inverted V empire waist that I immediately fell in love with.

"Nell, come here," I said softly, afraid to get excited.

"Find something?" she asked.

I withdrew the dress and held it up to my body. "What do you think?"

Nelly looked at it critically. "Pretty, but will it work with your shape?"

"Try it on," urged the shop girl.

I did so, and when I came out and stood in front of the mirror, I couldn't help but start to cry at the sight. (Of course, I've always been easily inclined to get misty-eyed...)

"Look at the embroidery!" said Nelly, seizing my shoulders and turning me to look at me from the side. "God must have shaved these diamonds off of snowflakes!"

The shop girl produced a tiara with diamonds and sapphires from a rack of them near the shop counter, then came back, pulled the pony out of my hair, gathered up my long blond hair, and settled the tiara cleverly amongst the pieces. "That one matches perfectly," she explained.

"You look like a snow princess, Winry," Nelly whispered reverently.

I smiled so widely my face started to hurt. "I feel like one."

Though a billion decisions had to be made, a million people had to be invited, a thousand hurdles had to be overcome, a hundred professionals had to be called, there was one thing that I never had to think twice about.

"What will you say?" asked Al one day at breakfast.

"Huh?" said Ed and I simultaneously.

"Your vows," Al explained. "What will you say?"

Ed scratched his head as he speared some more sausages from the still-warm pan. "Ask her. She's planning fairly everything. As far as I can see, my job is to stand there and look pretty."

I flicked a piece of a crust of bread at him in annoyance.

"Hey!" he complained, combing his fingers through his loose hair to try to find it. "It's true!"

"You haven't thought about it?" asked Al.

"We haven't talked about it," I informed him. I was kind of hoping for something traditional, but I didn't want to put my suggestion out there until I'd heard from him. "What do you think, Ed?"

"Can't we just say what everybody else says?" he asked. "'Richer or poorer 'til death do us part' and all that? I don't feel like embarrassing myself with anything self-written."

I smiled broadly.

I had waited my whole life to hear him say, "I, Edward Elric, take you, Winry Rockbell, to be my lawfully wedded wife, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better or for worse, for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish from this day forward, until death do us part."

I was an ice princess under the sun, surrounded by hydrangeas and stephanotises and ivy dripping from the seats which also bore everyone in the world who mattered, and then it was my turn to speak: "I, Winry Rockbell, take you, Edward Elric, to be my lawfully wedded husband, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better or for worse, for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish from this day forward, until death do us part."

The wetness in my eyes was seriously inhibiting my ability to see. I blinked a couple times while the man on my left said, "I now pronounce you husband and wife," and my sight was restored just in time for Ed to succumb to impatience and jump the gun: When the pastor said "You may kiss the bride," the groom was already kissing her.

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