Fingers crossed Fanfiction have sorted their issues now and you can see this (and the last update) and I can start replying to reviews!
"Ivory or cream?" Mary asked, holding up the two pieces of card between them.
"Aren't they basically just the same colour?" Emma sighed.
"No, Emma, they're not. Just pick one."
"Fine. The cream ones," she decided, having no idea which one actually was cream.
"We'll go with ivory," Mary announced. "It's much more elegant."
Emma tried not to let her frustration show, but she was struggling. Her mother had been inflicting wedding decisions on her ever since she'd returned from LA, and then telling Emma that all of her decisions were wrong anyway.
"You know, why don't you just go ahead and sort all of this?" Emma snapped. "If you're not even gonna listen to my opinions, why ask for them in the first place?"
She regretted snapping the moment the words left her mouth, but she was too proud to take it back. So instead, she stormed into her kitchen to grab a drink.
Mary gave her a few minutes to calm down before approaching her daughter. "I'm sorry, Emma. You're right, this is your wedding, this should be your decision. I just want it to be perfect for you."
"No, I'm sorry." Emma groaned. "I just… a part of me doesn't really care about this side of the wedding, you know? Who cares what kind of stationary we print the invitations on? And who cares what font we write on them with? At the end of the day, nobody's going to remember the invitations or the colour of the tablecloths. And yet… a really big part of me thinks that even though I don't care, Killian might. He should be here to help choose this. Maybe if he was I would care more?"
Mary excused herself for a moment, and Emma wasn't entirely sure why, until she returned around ten minutes later, an old, leather-bound journal in her arms, and a much newer one resting on top.
"You might not think that anyone will remember the invitations, but I can guarantee someone will," Mary explained, opening the older book and handing it to Emma. "I saved everything I could. Marrying your father wasn't just the biggest event of my life, but the happiest moment of my life too."
Emma flicked through the pages, skimming through Newspaper articles her mother had saved about her relationship with David, their engagement announcements and portraits, all the way up to a copy of their wedding invitations, a section from Mary's dress that had been clipped out, a swatch from a tablecloth, and all of their official wedding portraits.
"I've been making one for you and Killian too," Mary confessed, sliding the newer book in front of her daughter. "It's a lot harder to keep up with though, given how much you two love social media, but I think I have all the main parts."
Emma ran her fingers gently over the pages showing the screenshots of her tweets to Killian, all of the many official portraits they'd had taken at different functions, cards and letters they'd sent to each other in their time apart, all the way up to the pictures that had been taken at the People's Choice Awards a few days earlier.
"This is amazing, Mum." Emma didn't often cry, but she definitely found herself dashing away tears as she looked down upon the memories her mother had saved for them. "You're right. I should pay more attention to the smaller details."
"You're right too. Killian should get a say in this. It's his wedding as much as yours. We'll make him up a little box of proof copies of everything and ship them to him, to see what he'd like. That way, he gets to see it all in person, and not over a computer screen."
"Thanks Mum." Emma leaned into her mother's side for a brief hug, before she pulled back and dried her eyes. "So, what's next?"
"I have the box. can I open it yet?" Killian asked, bouncing a little on his bed.
Emma giggled at his enthusiasm. "You know, you're going to be really disappointed when you open that, right?"
"Why, what's in it?" he asked, picking it up to shake it. "Is it something kinky?"
"It's wedding invitations. I'm not sure how you could make those kinky."
Killian's face fell a little. "I could find a way," he mumbled, before asking a little louder, "Do I have to like, personalise a ton of them or something?" He was a little worried about how the hell he'd fit that, and his January deadlines, into his work schedule.
"No, we just wanted to know which ones you liked best. It's your wedding too, so you should have a say in every decision made, no matter how small."
Emma watched as he opened the box up, and lifted out the smaller one inside. Her mother had made up a number of different prototypes using different colour and font combinations, on different types of paper. She'd even gone so far as to seal matching envelopes with her royal seal, so that Killian would be able to see as much of the finer details as possible.
"Wow, this is a lot of fancy looking paper," he chuckled.
"I included chocolate too. Literally sweetening the deal," Emma replied. She laughed as she watched him dive deeper into the box, before surfacing with Milky Way bars. He tore into the first one, before he started sorting through the stationary before him.
"Tell me about your day?" he asked, as he worked.
Emma watched as he examined each item carefully, while she told him about her day at the Foundation, and the interesting letters she'd read that day from people who had received their help in the past. They were always her favourite types of mail calls, and the walls of her office were rapidly filling with them. By the time she'd finished talking about her day, Killian had finished inspecting the stationary he'd been sent.
"These ones," he told her, holding up one invitation design and it's matching envelope. "It's got a five written on it, so I assume that's what you need to know."
"Thank you. I'll let Mum know straight away so they can get the order placed. Grandma wants them sent out before the end of the month, so we can start getting replies back by the end of February." Emma relaxed back into her seat, some of the tension draining from her body. She'd tried hard to care about the damned initiations, but to her, they all the looked the same. Knowing that Killian had a favourite helped. She trusted him, and she trusted his choice.
"Thanks for letting me do this," he told her, holding up a handful of the invites. "It kinda sucks being stuck out here while you're back home planning our wedding. It's nice to be involved in the decision making process."
"I'll send you anything and everything I can," Emma promised him. "I want you to be happy about all of this. Even if you can't physically be here with me to help choose."
I am currently posting this from my horrendous train journey to a Supernatural convention!
If you've tracked me down on Twitter thank you for saying hi, and thanks to all of you who tracked me down at Storybrooke 3. I loved meeting you all – and sharing my embarrassing tale of how I ended up kissing Sean Maguire! Fingers crossed that doesn't happen again this weekend.
