Disclaimer: Ruby's 'stand well clear' speech comes courtesy of my brother (a legend in his own lifetime), who very nearly said this during our cousin's wedding…

Quick reminder – this is set in England, with British wedding traditions.

Note: Today, I bring you a special offer from the bakery. TWO cupcakes for the price of ONE!

Summary: Emma's wedding as requested by Hermitess [AO3], and MyraValhallah [FF. net], who wanted a Gremma chapter.

Wedding Cake – First Tier

Part One

"Oh Henry, I can't do it."

"Don't be silly, of course you can."

"But!"

"No buts. Do you love Graham?"

"Well, of course I do."

"And I know he loves you. So what's the problem?"

Belle laughed, and Emma couldn't exactly blame her. The three women were sitting in Emma's bedroom, putting the finishing touches to the bride's hair. Henry was sitting on the bed ready in his suit, looking far suaver than any ten-year-old had any business to look, being the calm voice of reason to his increasingly nervous mother.

"It's just all those people," Emma said. "Maybe I should have taken Graham's dad up on his offer to give us the petrol money to go to Gretna Green and throw in a free fridge-freezer."

Ruby rolled her eyes and gave Emma's coiffeur a final spritz of hairspray.

"Don't be ridiculous," Henry said. "Once you get in the church you won't notice all the people, it'll just be you and Graham and the vicar."

"Where do you get all this philosophy from?" Emma asked her son. "You're only ten!"

Henry shrugged. "It's the same advice you gave me when I had stage fright in the school nativity play when I was six."

"Come on, Emma," Belle said. "If Henry says you can do it, then you can do it. We'll be right behind you. Literally."

"So don't think of turning tail and running," Ruby warned. She affected the nasal tones of a train station announcer. "Ladies and gentlemen, please stand well clear of the edges of the pews as the approaching bride is not scheduled to stop at this altar."

Belle smacked her friend's shoulder. "Ruby, you are not helping."

Presently, there was a knock at the front door and Henry jumped up to get it.

"You aren't supposed to see Mum till the wedding!" Emma heard him exclaim.

"I know," came Graham's voice. "I just wanted to see if she's ok."

"She's getting her running shoes on for a quick getaway!" Ruby called down the stairs.

"Ruby!" yelled Belle, Emma and Henry in unison.

"Sorry!"

There was a timid knock on the bedroom door.

"It's all right," said Graham through the wood. "I'm not coming in. I just wanted to check how you're doing."

Emma got up from her dressing table and went over to the door, her fingers hovering over the handle, in two minds about opening it or not. She'd never held much with all this superstition nonsense, but at the same time, she was nervous enough already without tempting fate.

"I'm fine," she said. "Better now you're here."

"Well, I'll have to go in a minute." There was a pause. "It's still not too late to back out and hitch to Gretna Green if you want."

"I don't think Granny would appreciate her catering going to waste," Emma said. There had been some more cynical souls who had wondered if the wedding was actually going to take place. Whilst no-one had any doubts that Emma and Graham truly loved each other, they all knew that Emma was nervous about being the centre of attention at her wedding. She had come through so much of her life on her own that she wasn't used to having a big fuss made of her.

"Well, I've got something for you," Graham said. The door opened a fraction and his hand appeared round it, holding a slim box. "To complete your set."

"Something blue?" Emma asked. She had everything else. Something new – her dress. Something old – the necklace she'd worn every day for as long as she could remember. Something borrowed – her veil, a square of vintage muslin loaned by Graham's mother.

"Well, I know how you like to do things properly," Graham said. Emma flipped the box open and burst out laughing on seeing what was inside.

"Did you actually buy this?" she asked.

"Yes!" Graham sounded slightly hurt at the accusation. "I may have bought it online using my cousin's credit card, but I did buy it."

"What is it?" Ruby asked.

Emma held up the contents of the box – a blue lace garter.

"Thank you," she called through the door.

"My pleasure. Since I'm the one who'll be flinging it later, I thought I may as well go for it."

Emma laughed and came back to sit at the dressing table, hitching her dress up to her knees so that she could slip the garter on. "Well, as long as you aim it at Archie."

"Hey!" Ruby said. "I don't want my Archie being pelted with other women's undergarments, thank you!"

There was a pause after the laughter had died down.

"I'll see you at the altar then," said Graham's voice through the door.

"I'll see you then." Emma was gripped again by a sudden fear. She was used to running. She was good at running away from scary situations, and she couldn't think of anything more scary than walking into that church and having everyone's eyes on her. It wasn't that she didn't want to marry Graham, and it wasn't even that she didn't want to do it in front of all their friends and family – she was quite happy to let the entire world know that Graham loved her and she loved him. It was just… This was an unknown. Emma had only been to one wedding in her life before, and she felt it slightly overwhelming that her second ever experience of a marriage ceremony was her own. Put bluntly, she was terrified that something was going to go wrong.

"I love you," she added, feeling that it was very important to say it just in case something did go wrong.

"I love you too. See you soon."

Graham's footsteps became ever quieter as he went down the stairs again.

"I'll wait downstairs, Mum," Henry said. "So you and Belle and Ruby can do… girly stuff."

Emma managed a weak laugh at that statement as Ruby clipped in her veil.

"There," her friend said. "You're ready, and you look beautiful, Emma Swan. And remember; Henry's right. Once you get in there, you won't be nervous anymore."

The three friends sat in silence for a while, just enjoying each other's company. It was, after all, a momentous day for them all.

Presently they heard the purr of an engine winding down outside the house, and a scrabble of feet as Henry rushed up the stairs.

"The car's here!" he exclaimed, careering into Emma's bedroom. "It's amazing!"

Emma peered out of the window and smiled. As much as she would have been happy to drive to the wedding in her little yellow Volkswagen, Henry, of all people, had put his foot down. If she wasn't going to have a horse-drawn carriage, which was his first suggestion, then she at least needed a nice car with ribbons on. "You only get one wedding," he'd said. "You might as well go the whole hog. And no-one can drive in a wedding dress."

When Emma had weakly said that she and Graham were stretching their wages as it was, her son – ever scheming, ever practical and ever determined for his mother to have the happy ending he knew she deserved – had blithely suggested that she ask Gold: "because he's a lawyer and must know people with nice cars who owe him favours," being the reasoning.

Still marvelling at Henry's capacity for engineering things, Emma had nonetheless asked, and sure enough, Gold had called in a favour and produced a former client who was willing to act as chauffeur for the day. Emma was fairly certain that, given just the car and the cake, without any of the rest of the day that went between the two, Henry would have called the wedding a complete success.

It was a bit of a squeeze, but soon bride, bridesmaids and Henry were seated in the back of the car, and they reached the church far too soon for Emma's liking.

Oh, pull yourself together, she told herself crossly as she got out. There's nothing to be scared of. You're only getting married, for heaven's sake…

One of Graham's cousins, acting as an usher, poked his head round the church door.

"Ready?" he asked.

Emma glanced over her shoulder at Belle and Ruby, the former giving her an encouraging nod and the latter a thumbs up.

She nodded to the usher, who opened the doors fully to let her in.

Emma took a deep breath and stepped into the church as the music began to play. She was holding Henry's hand so tightly her knuckles were as white as her gown.

"Mum!" Henry hissed under his breath. "You're cutting off the blood supply in my fingers!"

"Sorry," Emma whispered back, and tried to loosen her grip slightly. Truth be told, having Henry by her side was an absolute blessing. Whilst it might have looked odd to the observer for the bride to be given away by her young son, Emma knew that Henry was probably the only thing keeping her from running up the aisle, grabbing Graham and running full pelt for the Scottish border. Maybe Gold knew someone in Gretna Green whom he could forewarn of their arrival.

But suddenly, she was there, at the front of the church, and Ruby was holding out a hand for her bouquet with an impish smile, and Henry had gone to sit beside Archie, and there was Graham, grinning as if all his Christmases had come at once.

And in that moment, nothing else mattered. Just as Henry had promised. It was just Emma, Graham and the vicar. When Graham took her hands and gave them a reassuring squeeze, Emma no longer felt the weight of everyone's eyes on her, no longer worried about forgetting what she was supposed to say, and she began to relax for the first time that day. She wondered if she should have let Graham come in when he'd delivered her garter; maybe his presence would have calmed her down before.

"We are gathered here today to witness the joining together in holy matrimony of Emma and Graham," the vicar began. "If anyone knows of any just cause or impediment why these two should not be wed today, please speak now or forever hold your peace."

A small part of Emma was still worried that someone was going to object, but there was silence, and the vicar smiled and moved on. Emma let out a long breath that she wasn't even sure why she'd been holding. Graham squeezed her fingers again.

"It's all going fine," he whispered, once the first part of the ceremony was over and they could sit down during the readings. Although they were marrying in a church, the same church that most of Graham's family had married in, neither had made any secret of the fact that they weren't strictly religious, and they had opted to keep their readings from more popular texts. True to form, Astrid managed to trip up on her way to the lectern, and only the vicar's lightning reflexes managed to stop her careening into the altar. The ensuing ripple of mirth that ran round the room (thankfully Astrid saw the funny side of it too) was enough to set Emma's mind at ease once more. Everything was going well. There was no need to worry. There was no need to run.

Astrid finished reading her passage from 'Three Men in a Boat' and it was time for the most important part of the wedding. Emma and Graham stood once again. Emma took a deep breath. She wasn't going to forget her vows. Nothing was going to go wrong.

"Emma, please repeat after me: I, Emma, take you, Graham, to be my lawfully wedded husband, to have and to hold, from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, according to God's holy law, this is my solemn vow."

Emma repeated the vow, and it was only after Graham had slid the wedding ring onto her finger that she realised that her active part in the wedding was over. She'd said all that she needed to say. There was no more reason for stage-fright. She'd done it. They'd done it. They were married.

"Graham and Emma are now beginning their married life together; we hope that they may have loving assistance from their family, the constant support of friends, and a long life with good health and everlasting love. In so much as Graham and Emma have consented to live forever together in wedlock, and have witnessed the same before this company, declared by the exchanging of vows and rings, I pronounce that they are husband and wife."

Graham didn't have to be told that he could now kiss the bride, and Emma wasn't sure if she heard a cheer erupt in the church, or if it was just her imagination. She didn't care.

Graham Wolff and Emma Swan were husband and wife, and Emma had never been happier.