It has taken a bit longer recently to write chapters, but stay tuned because they will eventually arrive.

A big thank you to everyone who's been keeping up with the story and those that have only recently found out.

A review would mean a lot, I appreciate all feedback.

Don't be afraid to ask any questions, I always try to reply.

One little question; I always wondered who you guys would pick as actresses to play CJ and Freddie in any live-action Descendants movie. If you want to, please share.

Enjoy!

Chapter 13: Planning

"Good, you're finally here!" Jane said once Ben and Mal walked through the large doors of the Auradon Cathedral and into coronation hall.

The first official meeting of the wedding committee had been postponed by a few days after Mal's run-in with the paparazzi, which had culminated in Mal injuring a woman with her magic. That issue had thankfully been resorted, with the woman not pressing any charges in exchange for erasing her punishment for ignoring a royal decree.

Mal had had a rough week, with people pulling at her from all directions either trying to congratulate her on the engagement or asking her increasingly complicated questions. These questions were either also related to the marriage, or to her feud with the press. Mal had done her best to drop the latter subject from her mind, and all these nosy people around her didn't help. Ben had similarly been swamped by work, both handling the wedding planning whilst simultaneously dealing with the isle threat. Mal became more and more impressed by the way he kept on handling his royal duties, whilst also spending plenty of time with her. She had seen the dark bags underneath his eyes for the past week or so and had vowed to herself to do as much as she could to take some of the stress away from Ben. While he never made a single complaint, Mal could not sit idly by and watch the kindest person she knew get swamped by work.

Today however, all of their other activities had been put on hold in order for them to fully focus on their wedding, or, as Ben liked to call it, their day.

One of the things that had already been concluded was that the wedding would take place in the Auradon Cathedral, the same place where Ben was crowned king and Maleficent had been turned into a lizard.

Mal and Ben had been joined by Ben's parents, Fairy Godmother, Evie, Archer and Jane, their wedding committee. Adam, Belle and Fairy Godmother mostly oversaw all official business-related aspects of the wedding, Evie and Jane concerned themselves with the planning and decorating, while Archer just mainly walked around and offered his council whenever necessary.

Even though he didn't do that much purposeful, Mal was happy to have Archer around. He was apparently the only one not completely stressing out of their mind about the upcoming wedding, and Mal was grateful to have one person to talk to who could actually calm her down. Ben of course knew how to do that, but he was naturally excited about the prospect of getting married so he tended to be a bit more tense lately. In any case, Archer managed to be the one to bring Mal back to earth, apparently being an expert in knowing what to say to take her mind of the wedding. The others managed to do exactly the opposite, with Evie being far more giddy than usual and Jane being even more pushy and stressful than she was during cotillion.

"Jane, we're not even late. We said that we'd meet at one, didn't we?" Ben clarified.

"We did technically say that, but in wedding terms you are always supposed to arrive at least three hours in advance." Jane rambled.

Both Ben and Mal rolled their eyes and instead happily greeted Evie and Archer, who stood behind Jane.

"Any new things you guys came up with?" Mal asked.

Evie squealed. "M, I might have had the best idea in like, well, ever. Listen, so you already know we decided on two flower girls, right?"

"Right." Mal answered.

"Okay, so I have been thinking who to pick and my first thought was automatically Dizzy." Evie explained.

"Aww, that'd be great. Would she be up for it?" Mal asked.

Evie rolled her eyes. "Do you even know Dizzy? To have any sort of part in a royal wedding is practically her dream. So, do I have your permission to ask her?"

"Of course, she'll be adorable." Mal replied.

"Great." Evie mumbled as she scribbled something down on her clipboard. "So, that then leaves the question of the second flower girl. Luckily for you, I also have someone in mind for that."

"Who?" Mal asked.

"Leia, the girl from the orphanage you always visit." Evie proposed.

Mal felt a warm feeling creep up inside her when Evie mentioned that proposition. It was true that Mal had regularly visited the orphanage, accompanied by either Ben or Evie most of the times, mainly to visit Leia. Together, they had played, painted and regularly checked up on their little spot in the garden. Even though Mal initially tried not to take preference of one isle kid over another, even she had to admit Leia was her favorite. The possibility of having her walk down the isle as one of Mal's flower girls made her giddy in her stomach.

"That'd be perfect." Mal said heartfelt.

Evie squealed again. "Great, I'll take care of everything. Though, I guess you'll probably want to be there when we pick out their dresses."

"You bet." Mal replied.

"Amazing, so that leaves one more thing I wanted to discuss, the ring bearer." Evie then proposed.

Mal sighed. "E, I wouldn't have the faintest idea on that."

"But I did." Jane piped in as she started walking next to the other two.

"Oh yeah? Who?" Mal asked.

"Well…" Jane began as she rummaged through the papers on her clipboard. "In recent times, it has become somewhat of a tradition for people to have their pets be the ring bearer during weddings. You should have seen the wedding of one of Ariel's sisters, they did it in a submerged room and had a dolphin…"

"Jane!" Mal interrupted her. "We get it, animals, so what's your plan?"

"We have Dude bring the rings." Jane stated simply.

Mal and Evie stared at each other in surprise at first, before they both apparently realized it wasn't that bad of an idea.

"Well, he can talk…" Evie began.

"Plus, he'll look adorable if we put a little suit on him." Jane added.

"I think it's a good idea. How about you, M?" Evie asked Mal.

"I don't really mind, as long as he keeps his paws clean." Mal replied.

Both Evie and Jane smiled, and hastily started scribbling on their clipboards.

"Mal! Evie! Jane!" Someone yelled.

Mal, Evie and Jane looked back to see Belle beckoning them to follow the rest, who had already moved further into the cathedral. Both girls hastily followed.

Jane quickly started explaining some of the ideas she and Evie had had to Ben, often pointing generally around the large hall.

Adam and Fairy Godmother listened in and also mentioned some of the official dealings they had already made.

One of these, which had been a scarce piece of input from Archer, was that friar Tuck would be the marriage officiant. For ordinary weddings in Auradon, Fairy Godmother would usually be the marriage officiant, but since she would also swear in Mal as queen in the same ceremony, it was decided to find another person suited for the job.

Speaking of Archer, he held his distance from the rest of the group at the moment, mainly twiddling his thumbs. Mal decided to speak with him for a little while.

"Hey Archer." She greeted.

"Hey, so what do you think of it so far?" Archer replied.

"Well, it's all coming together, isn't it?" Mal answered.

"Exactly, all we pretty much need to do is set a date and we'll be golden." Archer said.

"Ben told me that you were the one who proposed friar Tuck." Mal began.

"That's right." Archer replied.

"Have you known him for long?" Mal continued.

"Pretty much since birth. My parents are good friends with Robin Hood and Lady Marian. Through them, friar Tuck has been there for pretty much every major ceremony in my life. When Excalibur was passed to me, he was the one who led the ceremony alongside Merlin." Archer explained.

"And he has no trouble with becoming our marriage officiant?" Mal asked.

"Absolutely not. I spoke with him yesterday and he is quite thrilled to be officiating a royal wedding." Archer replied.

"He's not the pressuring type, is he?" Mal went on.

"Nah, he's actually a pretty laid-back type of guy. If you told him you'd prefer to get married in sweat pants he wouldn't bat an eye." Archer clarified.

Mal laughed, which got the attention of Ben, who joined the two.

"What's so funny over here?" He asked.

"Archer was just telling me about friar Tuck, have you met him?" Mal replied.

"Yeah, a couple of times when my family would visit Sherwood. He's a nice guy, you'll like him." Ben said.

"It's so nice to keep getting reassured that everything will turn out great, it's almost as if you're saying a lot of stuff can go wrong." Mal sarcastically said.

Ben raised his eyebrows and Archer just shrugged. "Well, you're technically right." Archer then said.

Ben hit Archer on the shoulder. "Way to be tactful man."

Archer grinned. "Relax. Look at her, she's able to handle at least some kind of pressure."

"Exactly. Ben, I'm fine. I know that we're gonna have a busy time preparing the wedding, but please don't feel as if I won't be able to handle myself." Mal jumped in.

Ben seemed reassured. "That's great sweetie, but again, it will mostly be these idiots who'll do most of the stressful jobs."

"And you are ever so thankful for that." Archer replied.

"Really though, what are the major decisions that still need to be made?" Mal asked.

"I can answer that." Evie stated as she joined the others and looked on her notepad. "The date is our main concern right now, but you can be sure that it won't be for at least another three months at least."

"Three months!? Why that long?" Mal asked indignant.

"There is still so much planning to do, M. All we have now is an outline. Once the date is set, we can start arranging things like flowers and other decorations, you need a dress, as well as the bridesmaids and the flower girls. Ehm, we need to figure out who to invite, and since Ben is king that list might take a while to compile…" Evie rambled.

"And all of this will take three months?" Mal asked.

Evie nodded, but hastily replied once she saw Mal's face. "This is all done to make sure you have the most perfect possible wedding."

"I don't need it to be perfect, at least not in that sense." Mal confessed. "I don't care what will happen, as long as I get to marry Ben."

Ben put an affectionate arm around Mal and kissed her on the head. "Trust me, I feel the same way."

Evie snapped her fingers. "Yeah, that's sweet and all but let's get back to reality guys. This is the way we have to do things and since I'm organizing as well, it will be marvelous."

Both Ben and Mal decided against arguing with Evie on this matter and instead joined up with the others to further discuss everything involved with the wedding.

It took about two more exhausting hours of walking through the cathedral before the wedding party moved onto the next item of business, the invitations. The wedding party moved to a secluded room in the cathedral where all could sit around a table.

This was the part where Mal was involved the least. All the people she wanted to invite that weren't already in the wedding party could be counted on one hand. Evie, Jay, Carlos and Freddie were pretty much the only people from her youth she wanted with her for the day. Besides them, there were a few of the younger isle kids she would like to invite, Dizzy and Leia included. Mal had already compiled that list some time ago though, and she thus had very little input in this matter.

Ben's guests were another problem entirely. Besides already being king, he was also the son of two of the most beloved people in Auradon's history. The list of royal guests and long-time family friends already reached far into the hundreds. Mal had tried to pay attention at first, only to soon realize that Adam, Belle and Fairy Godmother were literally naming every guest name by name.

Besides both Ben and Mal's friends at Auradon prep, these guests included pretty much all members of any royal family, from Aladdin and Jasmine to Triton, Ariel, Eric and their dozens of cousins. Ben naturally had to keep note of the conversation, since he was the half of the wedding couple who actually knew these people. After only fifteen minutes, Mal felt herself doze off, with her not really able to add anything meaningful to the conversation. Everyone noticed but decided against reprimanding her of it.

Both Evie and Jane did eagerly listen to the planning mostly done by Ben and his parents, since they would only be able to start making seating arrangements after the number of people that would be attending was certain.

The Auradon cathedral had already been chosen as the wedding venue, but a place for the reception was yet to be chosen. It was certain that the cathedral was big enough to fit however many people Ben would end up inviting, even if the number would eventually go beyond a thousand, but it was still a matter to find a suitable location for that amount of people to settle down after the ceremony.

One location that had been proposed at an early stage was Auradon prep, or rather the fields surrounding the school. Mal had no doubt that these were large enough, and she liked the idea of being near such a familiar structure.

Though no one had given any official feedback, Mal knew that everyone agreed that Auradon prep would make a fine location. If such a large number of people were to be put around the school, a number of arrangements regarding shelter would have to be made. Tents would naturally make for sufficient accommodation, but these would have to be reserved, which would make the job for the wedding committee yet another bit more difficult.

This was a constant struggle in Mal's mind. She was actually afraid to voice some of her preferences if they would put more pressure on her friends. Both Ben and Evie had naturally assured her that she needn't worry about any of them, that the wedding would be for her and that she had every right to make it as great for her as possible, but that didn't really put Mal's mind at ease. Her days of shamelessly taking advantage of people for personal gain were long behind her, now she was trying to look out for everyone's best interests.

"Mal?" A voice suddenly asked.

Mal awoke from her contemplations and looked around. Every eye around the table was focused on her.

"Sorry." Mal mumbled. "I think I dozed off a bit, what's up?"

Ben grinned, but both Belle and Fairy Godmother gave her a judging look.

"We just discussed your own proposal to have the ceremony around Auradon prep." Belle said.

"Oh!" Mal exclaimed. "And? Have we reached any conclusion?"

"Had you actually listened in, you would have heard we decided on approving it. Some preparations will naturally have to be made, but we are already swamped in work anyways." Adam replied.

"Thank you." Mal reacted, the gratitude dripping from her voice. "Really, this means a lot and I know how much work this will be."

"It won't be a problem, dear." Fairy Godmother answered with a smile. "And my guess is that everyone feels a bit fatigued after a long day, so how about we postpone further topics of discussion for our next meeting."

Everyone around the table mumbled in agreement before pushing back their chairs and standing up.

"You okay?" Ben asked as he joined Mal at her side.

"Physically, yes. Mentally, exhausted." Mal replied.

Ben chuckled. "You have every right to be, I believe we have stayed here longer than we intended."

"Really? What time is it?" Mal asked Ben with a yawn.

Ben grabbed his phone from his jacket and looked at the screen. His initially relaxed expression turned to one of worry in an instant.

"What?" Mal asked.

"I have twenty-seven missed calls, from Lance, Audrey, Jay, Carlos…" Ben began.

"What?" Mal repeated, as she bent over to look at the screen. "What's wrong?"

"No idea." Ben replied. "Maybe…"

But Ben was interrupted by a shrieking sound, for which Evie was responsible.

"Evie?" Mal asked. "What… Did the others message you too?"

Evie nodded. "Doug called me ten times! He left a message! Something happened at Auradon prep!"

"What!?" Both Ben and Mal exclaimed as they joined Evie at her side.

"What did he say?" Ben asked.

Evie fidgeted with her phone, her shaking fingers unable to correctly push any buttons.

"Guys?" Archer suddenly said sharply as he looked up from his phone. "There's been an attack!"