oh sweet matrimony

About: A series of one-shots revolving around marriage. Bella and Edward's impending wedding brings old memories to the front of people's minds. Each chapter will revolve around a certain ship; this chapter will be about Alice and Jasper!
Ship: Alice/Jasper, Carlisle/Esme, Rosalie/Emmett and Bella/Edward
Genre: Romance/Humour/Fluff
Disclaimer: I'm not Stephenie Meyer. I don't own the series. I don't want to get sued. I'm just a random fan-girl who likes Edward and Jacob.

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I. ALICE&JASPER

I wasn't sure whether it was natural or normal to be more excited about a wedding than the bride, but frankly I didn't care – I was neither natural nor normal. I liked ceremony, celebration, wedding gowns and plate patterns far more than most, and if the bride wasn't going to be excited about all this stuff – which in itself was an odd occurrence – then I would have to have as much excitement for two people. Now that was something I could accomplish without breaking a sweat. It wasn't even as if I was trying to go overboard with the planning. I was keeping it pretty simple.

The first few days of planning had been given me that euphoric feeling, which I tended to get whenever I got to choose someone else's attire. However, things started to take a swift spiral towards hysteria when I found out the flowers would be delayed, along with Emmett's license to wed them. Those small mishaps started to bombard on everything else, until I was so frustrated that I was second guessing everything I'd already planned.

Were the colours right? Would the dresses fit perfectly? Would Bella change her mind and run off to Vegas and get married in sweats? Ergh, now that thought irked me more than any other. It didn't help that Bella wasn't worried, anxious or excited about it. She approached the whole situation with a mild indifference, and only when Edward was around did she seem to have an input – and that input was usually against something I had already planned.

Really, I loved the girl as a sister but I couldn't understand her complete lack of enthusiasm! If I had to worry about the details then surely she could jump right into the moment.

"Jasper," I whined as I looked at different colour charts. I felt an odd calm coming over me as he entered the room, and I scrunched my features in efforts to escape it.

"No," I said in my best 'you-better-watch-yourself-mister' voice but failed terribly. I never really did have that authoritarian air. "Calm won't help me pick a colour scheme or place settings or suits for you guys." He took notice as the frustration leaked back through, but not nearly as strong as it had been. Jasper was always one for compromising.

He shook his head in response, grinned lightly and leaned against one of the bed posts. His gaze flickered from the hundreds of magazines on the bed to the floor, and he seemed to find the whole scene rather amusing. Most of them were out of date as Bella didn't want to be in Vogue with the fashion market – she wanted traditional, and not the usual white wedding and church scenario you thought of at the words 'traditional wedding'. She wanted real tradition, the sort of ancient kind that had died out long ago – or more precisely, the type that had died with Edward. Even though I thought the idea was quirky and unique in its own way, it was hard to get wedding magazines to cater for that.

"Is lilac really the right way to go?" I started, picking up different samples of lace and fabric. "Or do I go back to blue? Edward seems to like her in blue, but that doesn't seem very traditional, you know? So it's either traditional with pastels, or a little out there with blue?"

I frowned again, reaching across for another sample book before looking up to him.

"Well?"

His answer was one of silence, though his features said it all – they were a mixture between, 'You do realise I'm a guy, right?' and 'Am I really the best person to ask about this?'

Men.

"You must know which you prefer," I said, holding up the two pieces of fabric hopefully. "Is Bella a lavender or a blue type of girl?"

He at least appeared to be humouring me, as he cocked his head to the side in thought.

"How about you meet them half way?" he said, taking a seat on the bed and rummaging through the colour charts. "Periwinkle."

Now that was an idea!

My face broke out into a huge grin as I bounded into his lap. "You know, this is why I married you," I said, planting a kiss to his lip before taking the chart off him. "We could have some of them in the bouquet. OH, and Lavender, too – she'll smell so nice walking down the aisle!"

Now my real enthusiasm had come back – I didn't realise how much I had missed it.

"And she can have them in her hair, as well," I continued while looking to Jasper's blonde tufts. "Hmm. Let me try something."

He held me securely in his lap, but allowed me to poke around through various things on the bed. I scrunched up a piece of colour paper and tried my best to get it to look like a flower, but failed terribly. In a matter of moments he had taken it off me and transformed it into something an origami master would have been proud and envious of.

"Are you going to tell me what you plan on doing with this?" he said, but he soon caught on by the mischievous look at my features, and decided to beat me to the punch. He slotted it behind my ear carefully – a vibrant shade of periwinkle against my dark strands. "Beautiful," he murmured, lifting my chin to kiss me lightly on the lips.

"I'm sure it would look just as good on you," I teased, but I missed what he said as I reached back for the next bit on my agenda. I was after my bright pink diary, both obnoxious and loud in colour but still one of my favourite possessions.

"Alright, so I need to ring the florists .. again," I said, noting that down as he trailed kisses along my neck. My resolve really was something when I could control my need to succumb to his wishes and continue writing. "They might be able to get that done a little quicker seeing as they're not as popular as the orchids." I paused for a moment, frowning at the wedding dress that was hanging up on my door. "I'll need to sort out new bridesmaids dresses – Rosalie will be pleased."

Rosalie had been more difficult to coax into a dress than Bella, and that really was an accomplishment. It was getting a little tiresome, actually, but I tried to emphasise with her situation - tried but generally failed. I was unsure whether her dislike towards the idea was because of her desire to see Bella remain human, or because she was frustrated because she wasn't the centre of attention. She would always be my first sister, but she was just as confusing as Bella at times. I was starting to think that I was the only one who could be depended on to be the simpler vampire.

"I never did get around to choosing plate patterns for the reception," I began as I pulled away to find the right plate catalogue – something that did not amuse Jasper. "So that should be pretty easy to sort out."

When I looked back to him his expression was of perplexity at my obliviousness, before his brow quirked.

"Oh, right, sorry," I said, laughing quietly before dropping the diary and pressing my lips firmly to his. I hadn't meant to make him feel second best to all the planning, but as I recounted the past few days, I realised I had done just that. I tended to get ahead of myself, and only he could bring me back down to our reality.

"Just all this wedding stuff - you know how it gets me," I said against his lips, and he chuckled while lowering me back against the bed, across all the wedding preparation for someone else. It was odd how such things brought flashes of my own wedding to the front of my mind.

"Don't I know it," he whispered, starting his journey down my neck again.

Our wedding had been a small affair, which sounded off when looking at everything I was going through for Bella. Rosalie and Emmett had just gotten married for the second time, and though it was a gorgeous affair, it was also over the top and too complex. I spent most of the ceremony watching Jasper and gauging his reaction. He too took note of all the people, most of whom we had only known for a few months since arriving, and I knew he thought it was all too much. It seemed so impersonal, if I was honest with myself. It was then that I decided that if I were to ever marry it would only be the once, and to Jasper, of course.

"I don't remember you getting this flustered for our wedding preparations," he commented, bringing me back to reality.

"That's because I wasn't the only person excited about it," I replied. "At least, I assumed I wasn't – seeing your face when I was walking down the aisle sort of had me questioning that."

I couldn't help but grin as he looked up at me sharply, glaring playfully before he shook his head at the memory.

"I wasn't that bad," he argued.

"You looked terrified when you saw me coming towards you!" I reminisced with laughter. "There I was, all dressed up in a gown I had to have altered because I'm so darn short, and you looked as if some humongous beast was coming down the aisle to tear you limb from limb."

"Most people get nervous when it comes down to it," he replied against my cheek. "Anyway, I think you're exaggerating."

"Exaggerating? Me?" I said, unable to contain myself. "Never!"

A comfortable silence passed between us as he kissed along my jaw-line, and my hands fell into his blonde hair that I loved so much.

"Alice?"

I hummed in response.

"All this planning isn't a hint for me .. is it?" he asked as he reached the hollow of my throat. "I mean, I thought we'd always said we only need to take that trip down the aisle once, but if you want to do it agai-"

"Jasper," I said, turning his head so I was looking at him. "All this planning and organising is partly because I'm a little obsessed, I'll give you that. But, it's mostly for Bella. She needs this experience if she's going to go ahead with her plans, and I couldn't live with myself if she didn't get it because I wasn't a little forceful. She should only have to do it once."

If I knew him as well as I thought I did, I could tell he was a little relieved but that didn't insult me. He seemed pleased that he hadn't missed some huge sign that shouted for him to get down on his knee again.

"We could never top ours, anyway," I said. "It was perfect – everything about it was."

"I couldn't agree more."

It really had been a blissful day. We had gone back down to his hometown in the south, and had both agreed that an outdoor occasion was more fitting, rather than the church concept – it didn't seem right somehow, and we only wanted to make our promises to each other and our family. The ceremony had taken place at an old cottage that Carlisle had acquired a few years ago through some careful watching of the housing market. It was nestled amongst green hills – a landscape that seemed completely untouched by man and creature.

The sun was setting as we exchanged vows under the Twilight sky, which had a poetic and calming atmosphere to it. Carlisle did the honour of marrying us – what with his past – and Edward had walked me down the aisle we had constructed out of wild flowers. Rosalie and Esme had been my bridesmaids, and I hadn't had the heart to choose between them for the role of 'Maid of Honour'. Emmett had been in charge of the rings, though both he and Edward served as Jasper's official 'Best Men'. I had started to regret giving such a responsibility to Emmett, when he decided that pretending to lose the rings was highly comical, but Rosalie swiftly put him in his place with a look I could never dream of possessing.

It was what followed the wedding, though, that really cemented our relationship. I had no idea I could truly feel more for him, but it had been possible on our wedding night. With him being quite traditional in most things, we had decided to wait till our wedding night before giving ourselves to each other physically. I had found it comical at the time when he shared his feelings – not only because he said them with an expression that truly deserved a blush, but also because it just showed he was so much more than even I had believed. He had so much respect for me that I couldn't question it, even if I had wanted nothing more than for him to have me at that moment.

That night had been magical, no matter how corny or cliché that sounded. He was far more experienced than I was, but it didn't really bother me as I knew this time meant more to him than any other conquest of his past. The way he was so gentle, as if I was truly breakable, was breathtaking. He was constantly asking if I was alright, and by the sixth time of his questioning I had tried to prove myself by sealing my lips to his in a kiss that stopped all his worries.

After the infamous climax - something I had never truly appreciated until that night - we just lay in each others arms, paying no attention to whether the sun was rising and signalling for us to move ourselves. We didn't live our lives by day and night, after all.

The whole thing had been simple but so much more powerful than I could have imagined. I knew our love was enough, so there was no need for an overdone scene or multiple weddings. It was fine for Rosalie and Emmett, but not for us. I couldn't put Jasper through all those nerves again, even though I knew he wouldn't second guess the idea if I asked that of him. He was perfect in that way – always willing to please me at whatever cost, and I hoped that he thought the same of me.

"Anyway, we don't need a wedding to celebrate," I told him, the memory slipping from the front of my mind. "Our anniversary is coming up in a few weeks, and I quite fancy celebrating at our cottage."

"Now that is completely doable," he said.

"Then again," I said, pausing as my hands went to undo the buttons of his shirt. "We could always start now," I grinned, flipping him over so that I straddled his waist.

"You know," he said, his hands playing with the hem of my shirt, "I'm starting to think you should plan wedding more often."

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