Chapter 21

A Change of Plans

Bella's POV

We had just got back from the meadow when we were greeted by Alice and Jasper.

"Jazz," Edward shook his hand.

"We have some news." I couldn't help blurting out.

"Congratulations!" An exuberant pixie hugged me.

"Hey, you haven't even heard the news yet," I protested.

"No, need." She waved her hand and rolled her eyes. "Your faces say everything I want to know," Alice laughed.

"It's good to see you interested in the wedding at last." The pixie smiled. She turned to Jasper and they had one of their silent conversations.

"Bella, er…there is something I wanted to ask." Alice wasn't meeting my eyes and there was a worried frown on her face. But she was bubbling with excitement. It was such an odd combination, even for her.

"What is it, Alice?"

"It's just that…this is going to sound a bit…okay it's…kind of a big favour," she was stammering. Alice stammering is something that never happens.

"Out with it. You know I'd agree don't you? As long as it's reasonable," I immediately added remembering the multi-coloured decorations in her home. I was already dreading the décor at the wedding. I had not cared at all when I was going to marry Jacob. Now I wanted my dream wedding. I was hoping that Jacob hadn't gone overboard with the colours with Alice as his co-organizer. They were clearly a deadly combination. There was no way I could change anything this late in the day. I sighed.

"Well, I…we…" Alice met Jasper's eyes and he gave her an encouraging nod.

"As you know I also want to get married. But right now as things stand we won't be able to do that back in Seattle. So, I was just wondering whether you'd mind if we get married here too." Alice blushed, when Edward burst out laughing.

"Of course we wouldn't mind, Alice!" I said at once hugging her to congratulate her.

"Oh, thank god. So you wouldn't mind it if we marry at the same place? I mean at La Push beach? It's sort of my dream wedding. I was going to do it on a beach in Miami as well. It doesn't really matter to me which beach really. So…"

"Oh, Alice! That's so great! I'd love that…"then a sudden thought struck me. This was the opportunity for me to have my dream wedding as well. I met Edward's eyes and looked at him pleadingly; he seemed to know exactly what I was thinking. He mouthed the words meadow and smiled at me.

"I also have a great favour to ask."

"What? What is it? You know I'd do anything." Alice was a ball of energy now that she was going to get her dream, she was kind of vibrating with excitement.

"Edward proposed to me at my meadow," I smiled looking up into my fiancé's glittering emerald globes.

"You have a meadow?" Alice asked me in surprise.

"It's a small clearing in the woods. We own the property. I used to go there when I wanted peace and quiet to read."

"Oh, this is lovely. So you want to get married there?" Alice seemed to know where this conversation was going. I felt guilty for changing the venue just like that, but since nothing was going to waste…

"Yes, Alice. It's the place I secretly dreamed of getting married. When Jacob and I discussed weddings, his dream was to get married on La Push beach so I pretended to like it as well. And, I'm going to wear my old wedding dress, the one I made with Jacob."

"Will it fit?" Alice laughed.

"I have no idea! Hopefully I lost enough weight this week." I meant it as a joke, but Edward's face fell.

"Oh! Wow! So, what are we going to do with the dress I made for you…or…I mean do you mind very much if I wore it?" You have got to love Alice!

"Of course not—was it your dream dress as well?"

"Well, sort of but I was planning to have it much shorter." I was going to wear the multi-coloured confection just to please Alice. I heaved a sigh of relief. Now I was finally going to get my own dream wedding, with my dream man.

"You can adjust it anyway you want, Alice. I don't mind. In fact, I want you to keep it, Alice." Now that I didn't have to, there is no way I'm ever going to wear it. Unless, of course, we are celebrating Mardi Gras, then I'd blend right in.

"Wow! Thank you, thank you, thank you!" I could see how happy she was to wear her special creation. Then, suddenly, she stopped dancing around and turned to me.

"So, we are both getting married tomorrow?" Huge pixie eyes stared at me.

"I was thinking that Edward and I could marry on Sunday. That will give us two days to get everything done. Since everything is already ordered for tomorrow…" I knew it was not realistic to try to have both the weddings tomorrow. We had to order the food and find photographers to cover the wedding etc. It was already past one in the afternoon. We needed at least two days to make all the arrangements.

"So, I can get married tomorrow? Oh! Jazz! We are getting married tomorrow!" Jasper caught the bullet-like little pixie to his chest and spun her around. It was amazing how calm Jasper was taking all this, but I guess it balanced them out.

"Oh, my God! How are we going to get everything done in such a short timeframe for your wedding?"

Jacob had already done much of the work for tomorrow's wedding since Monday, along with Alice. So that wedding was already taken care of. But we now needed to plan our wedding and get everything done in two days. We didn't have the luxury of time since I was turning 24 next week. We didn't dare cut it too close.

"Oh, don't worry—we've got plenty of help." I picked up the phone and called Jacob. The next thing we knew, he arrived with a truck load of people.

"Okay, first, congratulations Bella! Now guys do exactly as Bella says," A huge grin was pasted on Jacob's face. I was enveloped in a bear hug as Jacob spun me around.

"I'm so happy, Bells! You finally get to marry your dream guy!"

"And, Edward…" Jacob's grin fell and for a minute he looked sad. Then he crushed Edward in a bear hug as well. Edward looked really uncomfortable, I should warn Jacob to keep his hands to himself and not molest poor Edward. That was going to be my job now.

"You are breaking my heart man. How am I ever going to get over your gorgeous green eyes? I wish you liked popsicles instead of great holes. Oh, well, what to do." He shook his head sadly, pulling back from Edward. I could tell Edward had not figured out what Jacob just told him from the frown that etched on his face. But then suddenly his eyebrows shot up and he blushed furiously. We all burst out laughing when we saw the mortified look on Edward's face. Jacob had basically told Edward, he wished he liked guys instead of girls.

I didn't need much encouragement, I lead everybody down to the meadow and we made a plan on how to decorate. I actually decided that we really didn't need to do anything much. It was perfect as it was. I only wanted the Quileutes to make us a flower arch so that we could marry under it. I wanted that made out of wild flowers as well from around the meadow. We didn't have the time to make food so Edward insisted on ordering. We had already ordered for tomorrow's wedding. I was surprised when the caterer even agreed to make two wedding cakes. Alice already had pictures of the type of cake she wanted so she just sent the pictures, while I video-conferenced with the caterer and decided on a simple design. Then Alice and I got busy with our dresses. As I had hoped I was able to get into my wedding dress but it was very tight on top. I guess I'd grown-up a bit during the preceding years. We had to loosen and adjust it, but it made for quite a plunging neck line.

"God, Alice!"

"Bella, it's very sexy! People do have deeper necklines than that one on wedding dresses. Anyway, I did think that the dress was too conservative. The fifteen-year-old you and the twenty-three-year-old you are completely different in maturity…" Alice winked at me.

"So showing it with a bit of cleavage is just the thing to make the dress more…up-to-date," she laughed.

I had to agree. I couldn't wait to see the expression on Edward's face when he saw it. He wouldn't be expecting me to wear something so form fitting for my wedding. Jacob also loved the dress. We added a bit of lace to cover some of the neck line but everything else looked perfect. I was going to wear some wildflowers in my hair. Edward and I were going to get married in the morning while Alice wanted to have a sun set wedding. Edward hired a photographer he knew very well to cover the events. So we had the assurance of utmost secrecy. Edward had some CD recordings of him playing and we just decided to play those for the wedding.

I hadn't even known that Edward played the piano! There are so many things that I didn't know about this man I was about to marry, but I knew the most important thing. That is that he loved me. As long as I knew that, I didn't really care about the other things. We had plenty of time to get to know each other better later. I only wished we could live together after marriage. Edward and I had avoided discussing it. And with the excitement of the wedding I didn't want to bring it up and dampen our happiness. We'd worry about it later. I wondered whether we'd even have time for a honeymoon. We had to get back to work on Monday. We couldn't take too many days off since it would look suspicious.

Edward decided to fly in Esme for the wedding by helicopter, so that Esme could just stay for the ceremony and get back to Colin as fast as she could afterwards. He was so thoughtful. He knew how much Esme and I would love celebrate this special event together.

Luckily, no one expected us in Seattle since it was the weekend. We planned to spend the wedding night at Edward's house. After that I'd go back to my place and just pretend nothing happened. We agreed that for the time being we were going to keep everything secret until we figured out what Aro and Tanya were up to. We didn't know whether Tanya was working for him or for someone else. And Aro definitely wanted to prevent me from marrying anyone before my birthday. He clearly wanted me to marry someone other than Dimitri after that, so that I would break the conditions for the inheritance and he could most likely inherit everything as he was next of kin.

There was a light sadness in Edward's eyes and I wondered about it.

"Edward, tell me what's wrong?"

"I just wish that Carlisle could be there too…"

"I know…if you want we can ask him." I felt bad because I had my whole family here, but Edward had no one. I know even with all the turmoil they had recently, Edward loved his father.

"Bella…we really can't risk it. He's the one who was planning behind our back to break off your previous engagement. What's to say he'll not try to break this off too?"

"I know…" I hugged him tight. Then I had a thought.

"You know we could renew our vows or something later on when everything gets settled and have him there."

"I'd like that. You always know exactly what to say," Edward smiled and kissed the top of my head.

We were all seated around the living room having tea at my mother's insistence. The guys had gone back to La Push.

There was a hurried knock on our door and when I opened it Emmett rushed in.

"Congratulations, Edkins and future Mrs. Edkins!" He hugged us both to his giant frame and made everyone else laugh.

"Glad to have you here. How's everything back at home?" Edward asked patting Emmett on his back. Immediately, Emmett's happy demeanour changed to one of guilt.

"Well, er…there is…" Emmett suddenly looked uncomfortable.

"Out with it Em, what are you hiding?" I could tell Emmett had done something that he felt guilty about.

"I er…might have told Rosalie about a wedding," Emmett said while rubbing the back of his neck.

"What?" Both Edward and I said at the same time. This was so not good.

"I was talking to Seth about the wedding when Rosalie walked in on us. She wanted to know whose wedding we were talking about and I told her that Alice and Bella were getting married."

"What the hell is going on here? And why in god's name is Bella marrying Alice?" A gruff voice sounded from the doorway. I gasped when I saw who was standing in the doorway.

A/N: Thank you for all the lovely reviews :). Who do you think is in the doorway? What do you think of all the wedding arrangements?

Thank you, Dazzleglo and Twimarti for beta'ing this story: ).