A/N: Well, it's been seven months, but I've finally finished another chapter. Woohoo! Anyway, to answer the question I'm sure you're all thinking: no, this does not mean this story is coming out of hiatus. Sorry. The next chapter will be posted when I finish writing it, which may be in two weeks or it may be in another seven months. Though hopefully it'll be sooner rather than later; I really don't like making you guys wait so long for new chapters.

Thanks for all your reviews, and thanks for sticking with this story. Now, on to the wedding!

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I was incredibly nervous about today, but it wasn't a single one of the stereotypical wedding things that had my stomach tied in knots. I wasn't worried about my dress or the flowers or the cake. None of those things that usually gave brides jitters had me even remotely concerned. Part of it was because I'd planned everything out thoroughly, but it was mostly because I knew that in the grand scheme of things, my wedding wasn't that important. I was much more worried about what came afterward than I was over the lighting or my hair or any of the other details. Today may have been my wedding day, but tonight was the night I became a vampire. And that terrified me.

Of course, all I had to do was look at Allen and all of my fears and worries washed away. Just the sight of him reminded me that I was doing this for love. I may not have been ready for what was going to happen tonight, but I was incredibly ready for the rest of today's events. I was ready to become Allen's wife.

But while my wedding wasn't my highest priority, that didn't mean that I hadn't put my all into planning it. This was still a once in a lifetime event, and I was going to do it right. It helped that money was no object; the Noah were paying for everything, and the budget they gave us was more than twice what we actually spent. They occasionally tried to pressure me into picking more expensive things, but they actually listened to "I'm the bride, we're doing this my way", and I quite enjoyed what I knew was my one opportunity to tell them no.

Everyone thought we'd done it on purpose, but it really was just a coincidence that Allen and I each had a vampire and a human in our bridal party. Alma was Allen's best friend and Lavi pretty much begged to be in the wedding, forcing me, with my lack of female friends, to find not one, but two bridesmaids. Miranda was an obvious choice, and Road claimed the other spot the second she heard I was looking for a bridesmaid; her behavior was annoying, but I truly didn't mind - she was a decent option and I knew that putting her in the wedding party would guarantee that she'd be on her best behavior that evening.

There were quite a few other things in my wedding that were chosen not because I wanted them that way, but because other people wanted them that way. It simply couldn't be helped though. Getting married on a Wednesday was odd, but that was the day that my friends from Bella Ragazza could come; it was a slow day, so the restaurant would be able to close and cater the wedding without losing business. And it may have sounded romantic, but having the ceremony start at sunset was done to accommodate the groom and the other vampires in attendance. The Earl insisted on giving the toast, and while it may not have been what I wanted, I knew better than to deny that request.

I had wanted a pastor to perform the ceremony, but we found out really quickly that that wasn't going to happen. Most of them flat out refused to even meet us once they learned that we were a mixed species couple, and the few that were willing to marry a human and a vampire were much, much too eccentric for our tastes. When he heard of our problems finding a minister, Tyki volunteered to get ordained and marry us, but Sherril and the rest of the Noah shot that down with raucous laughter before I was forced to treat it like a serious suggestion. It sparked some interesting discussions among our friends though, and in the end, it was decided that Krory would get ordained and perform the ceremony. It wasn't my first choice, but I thoroughly believed that he would do a good job, and it was definitely our best choice when the wedding was less than a month away and we didn't have a minister.

Getting ready went off without a hitch, and we made it from the salon to the venue right on schedule. Miranda and Road looked as great in their dresses as they had the day they'd tried them on. We struggled a little with the tiny satin buttons on my dress, but once the dress was on, that frustration vanished.

I felt absolutely spectacular in my dress. Despite all of the layers of fabric, the full skirt felt like it weighed nothing at all, and it was cut to just the right length where I wouldn't have to worry about it touching the floor and getting dirty - something that was quite important for an outside wedding. The lace bodice and satin sash made me both look and feel appropriately curvy without constricting my breathing. The only flaw in an otherwise perfect dress was that the off-the-shoulder neckline showed off too much of my cleavage, but tonight that only bothered me because it drew a little too much attention to the fang marks on my shoulder - our celebration of my graduation had gotten a tad rough, and Allen had bitten me. With so much of my skin exposed, the bite looked especially harsh.

As I caressed the pale divots, wondering if I should try to cover them with makeup, Miranda's fingers suddenly nudged mine out of the way. It was quite the unexpected action from the usually timid woman, but I looked up to find her smiling happily at me. "It was a brilliant idea to have Allen bite you before the ceremony. It's the perfect way to show everyone that you approve of what he is."

I blushed lightly at the assumption that Allen had bitten me on purpose, but she did have a point. Everyone at the ceremony knew that Allen was a vampire and I was a human, and from the difficulties we'd had putting together our wedding, that was actually a pretty controversial thing. A visible bite mark would go a long way towards silencing the whispers I'd been hearing about how Allen was manipulating me into marrying him. "Thanks, Miranda."

The first thing that stuck me when I walked into the courtyard was the number of people present; every single chair was occupied. I hadn't expected that many people to come, so it was a shock to see that everyone had. A good chunk of the faces were expected - the Noah weren't going to miss the wedding of one of their own - but there were quite a few that surprised me. Kanda had repeatedly said he wasn't coming, but he was sitting in the third row between Marie and their father. Anita was sitting nearby with her fiancé, who I belatedly recalled was close to Allen, so it actually made perfect sense that they were there. There was a tall blonde woman sitting behind them with a tough-looking man, who I recognized as Hevlaska and one of the bouncers from her bar. Even Lou Fa had come. But I think the biggest surprise was that all of the classmates I had invited were there.

When it was my turn to walk down the aisle, my focus shifted to the front where Allen was standing. His young face made him look a little like a senior waiting for his prom date, but otherwise, his tuxedo suited him perfectly. The bright smile on his face made his silver eyes sparkle, and it all just made me melt inside; Allen wanted this even more than I did.

Komui took my arm, and together we walked down the aisle towards the altar. All eyes were on me, and while that made me nervous, I was too busy worrying about whether or not Komui would be able to make it to the front without causing a scene. He'd been good so far, but who knew how long that would last.

We reached the altar without incident, though he did shed a few tears as he lifted my veil and gave my hand to Allen. Komui then took his seat in the front row, next to Reever, who had the unenviable job of keeping him in line for the rest of the evening.

Krory kept his speech short, like we had requested, but beyond that, I have no clue what he said. I was much too focused on Allen and our upcoming vows to actually hear what he was saying. Hopefully it wasn't too sappy or embarrassing.

We had gone back and forth on it several times, but in the end, we decided that we just didn't have the time to write our own vows. It was a choice that I regretted, until we were actually in the moment. As much as I would have liked to say something incredibly personal and meaningful about Allen and the effect he had had on my life, it was hard enough just repeating the traditional words after Krory, there was no way I would have gotten through an emotional speech. And I was determined not to cry on my wedding day.

Allen seemed to be holding it together much better than I was, but when it came time to place the ring on my finger, his hand was shaking so much that he dropped it. His silver eyes went wide with horror and embarrassment, but he was still the first to react. He bent down and picked the ring up off the grass, quickly sliding it onto my finger and smiling the whole time as if he'd meant to drop the ring. The wet metal of the band felt cold against my finger, but it nestled up against my engagement ring quite well.

Alma snickered, but no one else reacted to the blunder and the ceremony continued. I placed Allen's ring on his finger without any problems, much more relaxed now that something had gone wrong without anything bad happening afterward. And before I knew it, the ceremony was ending. "I now pronounce you husband and wife. You may now kiss the bride."

Allen pulled me close for a quick kiss before taking my arm and leading me back down the aisle. I had half expected him to drag the kiss out, but given the way our friends had been teasing us about making out in front of them - which we hardly ever did - it really wasn't a surprise that he chose to keep this kiss short and sweet.

While the guests moved inside to the reception hall, the rest of us gathered for photographs. The plan was for it to be just be a few quick pictures of the wedding party, and one or two of me and my brother, as we didn't want to keep everyone waiting. And for the most part, we managed to stick with that plan. Sherril had worn me down, and I had agreed to let him be in a couple pictures with Road, but otherwise, we managed to keep the Noah out of it; they would have caused too much chaos and made the picture-taking take too long.

It still ended up taking too long.

In my opinion anyway. Allen definitely didn't mind that his overexcited friends had gotten us off schedule, and when we finally made our grand entrance at the reception, no one seemed to even notice, let alone care, that we'd been gone for longer than planned. Though that could easily be chalked up to the open bar and skilled DJ; Marie was doing a fabulous job of keeping everyone entertained while we were gone.

Our grand entrance was immediately followed by the breakdown that I'd been anticipating all day. Komui had somehow made it through the ceremony without incident, but hearing me announced as "Mrs. Allen Walker" was apparently the straw that broke the camel's back. He burst into tears and clung to me so tightly that I was afraid I'd pass out from the lack of air. It took ten minutes to pry him off of me, and another ten for Reever and Alma, who claimed that it was his duty as the best man to help, to drag him kicking and screaming from the room. I was mortified by the scene my brother had made, but I was also quite used to his outbursts, as he'd been that way ever since he became my legal guardian, so I was able to brush it off pretty quickly.

It surprisingly helped a lot that the Earl decided that the lull following Komui's outburst was the right time for his toast. It wasn't the scheduled time for the toast, but it was the perfect way to distract everyone from what had happened and get the reception back on track. It was the first time that I could ever recall being grateful for his interruption; the Earl usually only butt into conversations to tease me and Allen about our relationship. And I had expected more teasing from his toast. Instead what I got was not only a distraction from the mortifying scene my brother had just caused, but a beautiful toast about how perfect Allen and I were for each other.