A/N- Wow. That awkward moment when you realize that you had two other finished chapters that were never published before you finally write again. Whoops. Well now I've got up to chapter 16 ready for you guys. Hope you enjoy this.

Sydney POV

I woke up on my wedding day to the sound of Nixie crying.

To most people this sounds like an unpleasant way to wake up, but I was always so glad to hear her that I simply felt relief. Stopping the crying was simple: change her, feed her, burp her, and then begin to play with her. This morning, however, Adrian took Nixie from me.

"Even with my extended beauty regimen," he said, "It's still going to take you longer to get ready." I nodded, butterflies in my stomach beginning to build. Jill met me outside the door, a grin on her face.

"Are you excited?" she asked, "I'm so excited for you! I can't wait to help you get ready. You're going to look absolutely beautiful!" I listened to Jill babble, allowing the familiar sound to calm me. I was oddly nervous. I saw no reason why I should be, it was just Adrian for crying out loud. There was no reason to be nervous. Unsurprisingly, telling myself that didn't help all that much.

When I arrived into the large bathroom that the girls had decided was to be used to get me ready, I was shocked by the amount of makeup and hair products that were spread across the counter.

"What?" I began.

"I went shopping," Rose announced.

"Um.." I paused, then went for it, hoping she wasn't offended, "I thought you were just into the whole guardian thing?" I turned it into a question at the end to make it seem less rude. Hopefully. Rose began to laugh.

"I was fairly normal for a teenager," Rose teased, "When I was in high school, I took Liss and ran away thanks to an unknown spirit user compelling me and infecting me with paranoia. We lived like normal teenagers, and had before then. In particular, I was a huge partier," she added, "After we were caught and brought back, I was told to get serious about my guardian training, or I was getting thrown out of school and disqualified as Lissa's guardian. Since that's all I wanted out of life at the time, I knew I needed to listen to the people who made that point. That was around when I calmed down. I used to be more into makeup and beauty products than Lissa was, I've always been so vain about my hair," she finished ruefully.

"Rightly so," Dimitri said, walking in, causing Rose to blush to the roots of her admittedly fantastic hair.

The banter continued as Jill and Rose sat me down facing away from the mirror and did mysterious things to my face and my hair. I was grateful to them because it distracted me from my strange growing nervousness.

After a few moments, Jill left the room, returning fairly quickly with Nixie, who was wearing a lavender flower girl dress covered in a bib for the time being. I felt my face light up at the sight of her. She looked adorable. Jill was also dressed, wearing a pale yellow bridesmaid dress that stopped at her knees. Once Jill returned, Rose left, presumably to dress as well.

Jill passed Nixie to me as she began to put on makeup, making it very similar to the makeup done by Lia DiStefano's artists for her modeling show. Once her makeup was done, she started on her hair. A bit of mousse later, and Jill's fluffy curls were calmed and looked more like beach waves.

I looked down at the beautiful ring Adrian had come up with a couple days after our formal engagement. It had one large diamond ringed in tiny lavender diamonds, so pale that they looked almost clear, but purple enough that I could see them.

"You two will do fine," Jill said suddenly. I suddenly got a lump in my throat.

"Thanks for everything, Jill," I said, hugging her gently around a sleeping Nixie, then passing Nixie back to Jill.

"I'm just glad to see you both happy," she said with complete sincerity.

"I agree on that," Rose said, also wearing a soft yellow dress, and carrying mine. I grinned at the sight of the dress. It was Old Hollywood, something that I'd always secretly been fascinated by. The dress I'd bought was long sleeved, but the sleeves and the entire bodice of the dress, were made of or covered in lace. The dress clung to me until it hit my thighs, where it flared out into a train. My veil was sheer, not falling far down my back.

I stared at myself in the mirror as I realized what Jill and Rose had done. The foundation of the makeup was subtle, but gave me the tiniest bit more healthy color. They had, thoughtfully, covered up my golden lily completely. In a nod to the style of the dress, my lips were a bright red that in no way worked with the wedding colors, but complimented the dress and the vaguely winged eyeliner perfectly. My now long blonde hair was swept up in a comb, with my veil placed next to it.

I felt beautiful. Suddenly, I heard my thoughts echoed in the sound of a familiar voice.

"You look beautiful, Sydney." I spun around as quickly as the dress would allow me.

"Mom?" I whispered. It was her. My eyes filled up with tears as my mother and my older sister rushed over to me and hugged me carefully. "How?" I asked.

"Blame Adrian," Carly said with a grin, "Not bad, little sis, not bad at all." For the first time, I realized that she was wearing a lavender dress the same color as Nixie's. "I claimed maid of honor status," Carly explained.

"Neither Jill or I minded," Rose commented with a grin.

"Where is she?" my mother asked suddenly. I understood immediately and beckoned to Jill, who handed me Nixie.

"Nixie," I said softly to the baby, "Wake up, Grammie is here." Without a sound, Nixie's eyes blinked open. I could literally see my mom's heart melt as she met her first granddaughter's bright green eyes. I handed her over without a word.

"Oh," my mom said, "What a beautiful little girl you are Nixie, Grammie is going to spoil you so much…" Mom trailed off and began babbling at Nixie.

"I'm so glad I could be here today," Carly said, putting an arm around me.

"Me too," I said quietly, marvelling at the fact that Mom knew that her first granddaughter wasn't 100% human, but you'd never know it. Nixie was loved and accepted as she should have been from the beginning. If she hadn't spent that miserable time with the Alchemysts.

Yet again, I pushed down the fear that had been growing over the past week that the Alchemysts knew where I was and would be there to ruin my wedding day. Part of me wished I'd convinced Adrian that if this was going to work, elopement was the only way. But I knew him, and I knew he wanted this too. I could have given it up for my little family's safety, but my happiness wasn't the only thing on the line.

Dimitri stuck his head back into the room.

"Sydney, are you ready?" I looked around me, at the family I had meshed together from the Sydney I was two years ago and the Sydney who I had slowly become. I thought about the Moroi who loved me standing outside, waiting for me. My nervousness doubled and my excitement tripled. My face exploded into a grin.

"I'm ready," I told them.