A/N I know that you all love long chapters, but I have been trying to keep them in the 7000-9000 word range or between 20 and 25 pages, depending on how much talking there is on a page. This chapter is 9800ish words. But you guys seem to love long chapters so here you go…
This is all the wedding planning and yum yum cake eating. Just fun and dancing. Since Ranger is assumed to be good at everything and raised in a Cuban household, of course, I made him good at dancing. Per Kadyn Stephanie took Latin dancing lessons in college so together they are awesome!
As always: Thank you for reading and reviewing! I appreciate and enjoy all your reviews and as I work to write the last two chapters; they help to inspire me.
PS I'm sorry this is late. I've been going crazy on my writing project which was due at noon today. It is also unedited/beta'edbeta'd. I'm sending it to my beta today and will reupload it when she gets it back to me.
Chapter Sixty-three
Thursday April 24, 2014 – Day 163 9:30 am
Stephanie POV
The next morning, we were all excited, except for my dad and Papa who bid us all adios and left together to go explore or something; they weren't really all that clear on what. They were just in a hurry to get away from us.
I hadn't curled my hair today, but it still had a lot of curl from yesterday and the cut gave it a lot of body, so it had energy and it felt like mine. I was wearing a dress with two-inch heels as requested by the woman who was going to be doing our choreography. With my hand in Carlos's we broke up into groups and all caught different taxis to go. Julie, of course, rode with us and we smiled as we headed out towards what I felt like was our future.
We arrived a few minutes early at Viva Las Vegas Weddings and Clarice led us into a room to discuss everything. Clarice was our wedding coordinator and said she was here to walk us through everything step by step.
She started by verifying that we really didn't need plane tickets for Mexico and Carlos assured her that we were covered. That we were flying on our own private jet and taking a twelve-person security team with us. She wrote this down and double checked that we didn't need the guards that would be there. She asked if we and the men that would be with us needed transportation to the Villa or would we be renting cars.
Carlos assured her that we would handle our own transportation. She said that the guards would be there on Sunday because they had the keys and were the ones to let us onto the property and we would have to make arrangements with them to come back the following Saturday to return the keys and they would check the property and lock it back up.
Carlos said it wouldn't be a problem. He got the address, directions, names of the guards, phone numbers to contact them and the gate codes. But she still said we had to contact the guards to let us onto the property. Carlos assured her we would make the needed arrangements and she moved on.
She asked us if we had final numbers and Carlos said that we had about seventy family members, ten friends coming and about fifteen men from his company. Most of them would be working and not viewing the ceremony.
She said we had to keep our number to 100 people, and he said some of his men would be on guard duty and not watching the wedding but would rotate out to eat at the reception.
First of all, we saw and set up our wedding website. It had our names, the date and time we were getting married and would be where people would go to watch the wedding live and to re-watch it later. They had e-vites for us to send out to people with the link built- in that we could put our picture on, but we just picked a stock picture of a bouquet. There were whole bio's for us to fill in about ourselves. but we were sending this link to people who already knew us. This was all unnecessary I thought.
Then she reminded me that while we knew everything about each other. My relatives that may watch it wouldn't know anything about Carlos and his relatives – even though they had met me once – wouldn't know anything about me. So, we should fill these out for all the people who would be watching our wedding live or recorded later.
We got all the information for the website so we could log in later and personalize it more and send out the e-vites. She wanted to clarify what names we wanted on the marquee outside the chapel and Carlos declined saying we didn't need to advertise our wedding any more than it already had been.
She went over the detailed timeline. On the day of the wedding, at eight am the limo would arrive to pick up the bride and her bridal party – up to nine people could ride with me. We would be escorted to the Elvis First look room where there would be snacks and we would get our hair and makeup done. I asked specifically about getting my hair curled a certain way and she said I could bring my own curlers and they would roll my hair and make sure it was exactly the way I wanted it.
There would be a photographer there every minute taking pictures and documenting the day for us. Once everyone was dressed and ready, they would take all the bridal party pictures before the wedding.
At ten thirty the Groom's limo would pick him up and his party and deliver them to the chapel. They would have pictures taken of them and the parents before the ceremony. At eleven thirty the doors would be opened for guests to be seated.
Carlos asked about extra limos and they said that all of theirs's were busy but that they had a contract with Las Vegas Limo's and could get us a discount if we booked through them. Carlos ordered six SUV limo's to pick up and take guests from the hotels to the chapel from eleven fifteen to twelve, one limo was to stay at the chapel the whole time in case someone needed a ride back to the hotel and six limo's from four to four thirty to chauffeur people back to the hotels.
She explained that there would be a fairy tale scroll for people to sign as they came into the chapel. The chapel would be lit with candles and we had a few decisions to make. Did we want a runner down the middle aisle?
We decided we did. We picked a light pink color out of the choices they had. We agreed to already have rose petals strewn down the aisle. She said we would have flowers on the ends of the pews with fuchsia and gold bows, there were two large floral arrangements that would be on either side of the alter. There was a large white gazebo usually set up for photo's after the wedding but if we wanted it could be set up in the reception area and we could have the photo's done there.
Carlos said we wanted pictures of the bride and groom and bridal party done between the wedding and reception. So set the gazebo up where we could take pictures in front of it during that time.
She explained there was a room for the groom and his party to stay with the parents until it was time to be seated. At twelve o'clock the officiant will take his place and then Carlos will come in the side door. The grandmas would be seated by a groom's man, the parents of the groom would come in and the best man would escort the mother of the bride to her seat and then take his place up front.
Then the bridal party starts. We decided that we wanted the flower girls to go first. Then the ring bearer. Julie, Connie, Lula and finally Mary Lou escorted by the last groom's man. We wanted the traditional music for the bride to walk down the aisle.
She showed us pictures of a beautiful white carriage with a padded red velvet seat that the bride rides in and two "footmen" in 18th century period costume dress would wheel her dramatically into the chapel. The father of the bride will be seated in the last pew and once she is escorted in; will be handed off to him for the walk down the aisle. I laughed. I hadn't expected this! ! We wanted to do something memorable and this would get people talking.
On one hand, I didn't want just anybody watching us live but once the wedding was over; I was going to spread the link all over the buBurg so that everybody could see the wedding and watch us get married. That way there wouldn't be any questions about our relationship and our commitment to each other.
It would give them something positive to talk about me, instead of all of my fiascos they used to talk about, and my mother could be the center of attention. Everyone will be congratulating her on the wedding and the reception, even though she wasn't really having anything to do with the planning or implementing of them and the wonderful choice of groom.
Our wedding included a soloist to sing a song for us and she had a list of songs we could choose from if we didn't already have a song. As we looked through the list Carlos stopped and pointed at one.
"This song is a duet; can you guys pull that off?" He asked, certain that they would do this for him.
"Mr. Manoso I was told for you we could do most anything." She looked at his song choice and wrote it down. "Yes, we have a couple that can sing this for you."
"Which song is it?" I asked because he looked so serious.
He handed the paper over to her and told me it would be a surprise on our wedding day. When I pouted, he said it would be a good surprise and that with everything I was helping to plan he was glad he could give me a surprise on our special day then he smiled his two-hundred-watt smile and I had to smile back at him.
We picked a malen officiant for the wedding. Then she went over some of the traditional things the officiant can start the ceremony with, and we agreed on about ten minutes of things we would like him to say at the beginning of the ceremony. My mother kept saying you need to add this, and Mamma kept saying you have to add that. I felt like I couldn't stop them, we had invited them to come along. They had flown in specifically to come today and have some input on our wedding.
While I may have put my foot down for my mother, I knew I was going to let Mamma have a say in anything that she wanted. I figured it wasn't hurting anything and all the things they were adding were nice and would only take a few extra minutes in the actual ceremony, so I mostly just let them have their say.
Our marriage couldn't be blessed by the cCatholic church, but my mother insisted that they read the scriptures offered and Mamma agreed. We weren't getting married in a church, but it can still be spiritual she said. They both wanted him to pray over us and offer us a blessing, even if it wasn't Catholic it was Christian.
Then they got all crazy writing a long blessing that they and our grandmothers kept adding too. I thought this is loco, we were going to have the longest wedding ceremony, well not nearly as long as if we had a mMass, I thought remembering my first over an hour-long wedding ceremony. This was growing ever longer with everything that they added so I took a deep breath and said it was still only going to be about thirty minutes long and that was a good length. Not too long and not so short people wonder why they came all this way to see it.
She asked us if there were any friends or family that we wanted to speak. That some couples like people to tell the story of how they met or stories about their courtship. Some people like stories about their lives before they met and how they have changed or improved each other's lives.
We declined not having anyone we knew to tell such stories and I didn't know if I wanted such stories told. So much had happened in the time we had known each other, and I wasn't sure how much of it should be told out loud.
She offered to have some of our friends or family to partake in the ceremony by reading some of the things we had decided we wanted read. Or they could read the scriptures we agreed on and we declined this too.
I just wanted the officiant that we had agreed on – a Gail Brockman who was older and an ordained minister to do everything. He had gray hair and had a regal older gentleman look about him that I thought would add to the ceremony.
With that we moved on to our vows. Clarice went over some of the traditional vows that we could say, and she told us that it is very commonquite common now to start with each person saying a few words. They didn't have to be vows but words we wanted our partner and everyone to hear.
We agreed that we would like a few moments to say something. We couldn't agree on which vows we wanted to say and repeat. None of them said what we wanted. So, we started writing out our vows and as before our mothers and grandmothers and Julie got involved and kept saying you need this line, or you have to have this. When our vows were over half a page long, we stopped all of that and tried to pare it down to something manageable.
Finally, we had something that included everything everyone wanted and it kinda repeated itself in different wording, but we got it all and when Carlos read it out loud everyone was happy with it.
Next, we agreed that we would be exchanging rings and went over the words for that. Once again everyone had something, they wanted said at the beginning of the ring ceremony. We agreed on some things and Mamma found the perfect words to say as we gave each other our rings and faster than I believed, we were done with that part of the ceremony.
I asked how much we had left because I was getting tired of the group deciding what was going to happen on our wedding day. I mean some of the things they suggested were wonderful, but it just seemed like it was all getting to be too much.
Clarice said just a little bit more. She asked us if we wanted to do a candle lighting ceremony as it was included in our package but not everyone wanted to do it. We said we did, and she showed us some pictures of three different kinds of candles and Carlos picked out the largest and fanciest with curly shavings going up and down each side.
Then everyone got involved picking out exactly what he would say at the beginning of the candle lighting, what he would say when we lit the candles and how he would finish. She then said that the mothers would have to be escorted up to the table to light the candles at the beginning of the ceremony.
She said it wasn't part of the package but she could be available on Saturday to arrange the wedding party and make sure everyone was in the right place at the right time and send every one down the aisle correctly and do little things like remind the mothers to light the candles. I wasn't sure about this, but Carlos didn't hesitate to say 'yes', we would like her there to organize it.
Then she offered to arrange the entrance into the reception; as well as help the photographers with the pictures. Carlos said any help we could get would be greatly appreciated and with that we moved on to the words that would be said and the music that would play as we did the candle lighting ceremony.
Finally, we would have our first kiss and be announced, and we picked out the music that would play as everyone left the chapel.
We discussed the pictures we wanted taken of the wedding party and our parents. Then we talked about the entrance into the reception. She wrote down everybody's names so they could be announced as they entered the reception. She asked about our first dance and Carlos didn't hesitate to name "All of Me," by John Legend.
Obviously, he had been thinking about it. I hadn't been, all I was thinking is that while the song he sang to me the night he proposed was perfect for that moment I didn't want it to become our song. I wanted something special and more personal to be our song and we hadn't had enough time out dancing where there was music with words to find a song that we could call our song.
She asked about Father/Daughter song and Mother/Son songs and we picked some out. She gave us a list of songs and said that this was six hours of music; that we could pick to have the DJ play for our reception. We had to relist them in the order we wanted them played using the six-digit number that was next to the songs. Or we could just pick out the songs that we wanted to hear, and the DJ would pick from the list mixing in fast songs with slow songs.
She explained that we will have an open bar with two bartenders for the whole time. Well drinks are all included but premium liquor will be charged for by the bottle. When the reception is over and since none of us will be driving; we or our guests can take the bottles with us.
The reception would be set up at one so when the wedding is over the guests could walk over and gather and mingle while the hors d'oeuvres were being served, this is also when the video cameras will be moved and put back on line so they are streaming the reception while we were having our pictures taken. Then she will line up the wedding party and signal the DJ to announce them. We will make our big entrance and go straight into our first dance.
Next someone – traditionally it is the father of the bride, but it can be the father of the groom and sometimes couples prefer to do it themselves – gives a welcome speech. We decided that both fathers should get the chance to speak.
Next, we would mingle around the room getting our pictures taken with different people and getting congratulated.
About thirty minutes after you arrive at the reception the buffet dinner will be served so probably about two. You still have to finalize the menu and numbers with the chef. You will be doing that next. The bride and groom lead the way down the food line. Then you sit and eat for about thirty minutes.
At two thirty as people finished up eating, the best man and maid of honor do their speeches and toast the happy couple. Then we will do the Daughter/Daddy dance and then the Mother/Son dance.
Then after dinner is more dancing. To kick off the dancing Carlos suggested the Wedding Money dance with me and all his relatives. He said this would get all the men dancing. She offered a tradition that they had used here that instead of pinning money to my dress there would be a money tree and the men would pin the money to the tree and then dance with me. He picked the song "Dancing with a Stranger" by Sam Smith and she continued with our timeline.
At three you will cut the cake and that will be served.
At three twenty-five you will do the garter throw and the bouquet toss.
Then you go around and say goodbye to everyone. You make your grand departure about three forty-five - we offer bubbles to blow on the couple as you leave. That way the guests finish up and get ready to go by four o'clock. They will be in to clean up and set up for the next wedding at four oh five so the guests will be ushered out rather quickly.
It all sounded good to me. Then she said that our reception package came with an Elvis Impersonator or other impersonator for people to take pictures with as well as a real Vegas Show girl to come and take pictures with your guests.
"Here's a list of impersonators you can choose from." She handed over lists to us, my mom and Mamma. Julie started looking over my shoulder.
"Batman! You have to do Batman!" Julie insisted.
"Batman would be cool, and all the boys can have their pictures taken with him." I said. Carlos knows that Lula and I call him Batman. He didn't know that Julie and I also call him bBatman. Carlos was frowning but I knew this would be fun. Julie was a mini-bBatman I mean she had the Batman DNA and we would love to have the real thing to take pictures with.
"There's a Frank Sinatra," Mamma suggested. "Can he sing songs that we request?"
"Yes, he can sing all of Sinatra's famous songs," Clarice said.
"You should go with Sinatra.," My mom agreed. And while I knew that would be her favorite; I honestly didn't care too much for the good old blue eyes. Personally, I preferred brown that dilate to black.
"You can have as many impersonators as you would like as well as multiple Vegas Show girls," Clarice confirmed.
"We want ten Vegas Show girls," Carlos said, and I looked at him with a question in my eye.
"The men in my family will go crazy but they are really for the men from work. It will give them someone to talk to and dance with." He explained and I guess he was right. Most of Carlos's family was all married. There weren't really any spare women for his men to get friendly with.
"Okay so I have ten Vegas show girls, Sinatra and Batman," Clarice confirmed.
"No Batman," Carlos said, and I looked at him.
"Come on it is for all your nephews and for me," I gave him a pouty face., "I want a picture with Batman." I wanted a picture of Julie with Batman and a picture of Carlos and me with Batman. I mean we had been calling him bBatman forever and Anton had even tried to make me into a bit of a Batman. I won't ever say I am Batman, but he did teach me a lot of things and at least I know that now I can protect myself and Julie.
"Fine, if you get Batman then I want Wonder Woman, too," Carlos insisted. Then he added, "When are we going to do pictures with them and stuff? We are pretty booked up here?"
"I want to bring this up and I just want you to think about it for a moment. The reception package that you bought comes with a four-hour reception. If we start your wedding just a little earlier, we can add a whole hour to your reception."
"How much earlier?" I asked because I didn't want to be getting up any earlier than I already was. Eight o'clock in the morning comes early when you've been up drinking half the night.
"Just half an hour earlier. We'll start the wedding at eleven thirty. The limo will still pick you up at eight am. But three and a half hours is plenty of time for them to get your makeup done. Speaking of makeup, whose makeup are we doing?"
"My bridesmaids two of them, my matron of honor, me but my other bride's maid is only eleven years old." I winked at Julie, "she only gets to wear lipstick, so I don't want to count her," I explained.
"We could add in the mother of the bride," Clarice suggested.
"Well they are all coming with me so add my mom, grandma and if you want," I looked at them. "Carlos's mom and Grandma Rosa."
"Got it., I will have extra makeup artists ready and waiting for your arrival. I don't normally do this, but this comes with some snack foods. Seeing as how it is so early, why don't we offer you a full breakfast with eggs, hash browns, toast and bacon?" She offered.
"Breakfast sounds great! That way we don't have to get up early enough to eat before we come." I agreed.
"I'll leave the final food for the chef to fix," Clarice suggested. "So, you are picked up at eight am. They will get you ready on time and have breakfast for you. At ten thirty we pick up the groom and his party. Wedding will start at eleven thirty. I will coordinate all the limos. All I need to know is the names of the different hotels people are at and how many are coming from each. The reception room will be ready for you so as soon as the wedding is over your guests can head over there and start on the hors d'oeuvres. You will get your pictures taken. We have to take down our video cameras and set them up in the reception hall. Once your pictures are done and we are live streaming. I will stay and coordinate your entire reception. All you have to do is show up, you will dance, eat and the impersonators will be there, and everyone will have a lot of fun.," She looked brightly at us.
"That actually sounds good," I agreed. I would like someone else (besides my mom) organizing this thing so I don't have to worry about it.
"We would appreciate it." Mamma sounded certain, and having four daughters' that she married off; I know she knows all about running a reception.
Clarice wanted to know if there was anything she missed, or we wanted, and I couldn't think of anything. Carlos requested special pictures be taken of the families. He wrote down some of the specific picture groupings he wanted and suggested these be taken while people were finishing up eating and before we cut the cake.
She asked us if we had a dress and suit for the wedding yet; stating that the dress and tux rental was included in our wedding package.
"What do you mean a dress is included?" I asked.
"Your fairy tale package includes a dress rental. We have a room full of all types of dresses – wedding dresses and period fantasy dresses. You can come tomorrow to try some on and see if you want to pick one out."
"Absolutely." I was thrilled, because I didn't have to buy and lug a dress around and what the heck do you do with them after the wedding? Nothing they just take up space in your closet. This way I could pick out a dress and it would be waiting here for me on Saturday and when we left, I could just return it to them and be done with the whole mess.
Carlos said he already owned a tux and didn't need one and she said one of his groom's men could use the rental and he said his brother could use a rental and they got that set up for him. All of the rest of Ranger's family was flying in on Friday afternoon so that was the time they set up. She set me up for a fitting Friday morning at ten am and said our time was up. Carlos got her number so he could feed her all the information of who needed to be picked up from where.
I couldn't believe that we had been going over this for two hours but there it was, and she was leading us to the kitchen for our meeting with the chef.
Chef Ṍṅeáze spoke with a thick French accent and pronounced his name with a flair that emphasized the O and A sound and the z was almost silent it sounded like Wonaaze. Ṍṅeáze he said was his grandfather's name and like his grandfather he was an honored chef who was going to cook glorious food for our wedding. He said his food was to die for.
He needed to know our totals: how many adults – anyone over the age of twelve –and how many children, under ten we were going to have. Carlos pulled out his phone and started doing calculations on it.
"Count on eighty adults." He finalized, "and twenty children."
Then he thought for a moment and said, "Ccount on ninety-two adults and twenty children."
"The limit is one-hundred people how can you have one-hundred-twelve people?" He demanded waving his arm at Carlos.
"I have men that will be outside working, and they can rotate and come in to get something to eat. So, while we will never have more than one-hundred people inside at any one time. There will be more than that eating dinner." Carlos justified and Chef Ṍṅeáze sighed.
"I have been told to do whatever you pay me to do." He said resignedly, looking at the floor and I could tell he had already had this argument with his boss who had laid down the law to him.
He sighed again and looked up at Carlos. "You try my patience and my cooking skills. I am a world-class gourmet chef but to make so many different dishes for so many people at the same time is not something my kitchen is used to."
"But we really appreciate it." Carlos assured him sounding very appreciative for all his hard work and I knew I really appreciated this man because his work would make or break our reception.
"So," Ṍṅeáze sighed deeply and then grabbed a sheet from the counter. "I have five hors d'oeuvre stations: chicken fingers, scallops with bacon, the fruit and cheese delight, the bean dip and salsa tray and an assortment of quiche."
"Yes, that is correct." Carlos assured him.
"I have two salads: the baby spinach salad and the divine house salad. For vegetables: I have the broccoli with parmesan and the maple glazed baby carrots. For additional sides: I have Gourmet Whipped Smashed Potatoes, Spanish Rice and Adult Mac and Cheese with Jalapeno Bacon, Portobello and Truffle."
"That is what we have requested." Carlos agreed.
"Then I have four dishes: the Teriyaki Glazed Grilled Chicken, the Lasagna with Italian sausage, the Classic Fajita with Beef and Chicken and Grilled Hangar Steak; and all this for one-hundred people each."
I was shocked Carlos had specifically only ordered all the dishes for about half as many people as would be there so that we didn't have a lot of food left over.
"The dishes were to be made for fifty or sixty people each." Carlos stated emphatically. "I want more variety but don't need enough food to feed three hundred people."
"These are the numbers I was given, and this is what you have already been charged for and I have already rush ordered all the food, which you are paying for. I'm having to call in extra people to cook all this food and you are paying for that too." Chef Ṍṅeáze sounded disgusted.
Carlos looked put out, but he was quickly realizing that we needed this man on our side.
"It's a lot of food and that is a lot of work for you, but I would rather have too much food, than to run out of food. We do really appreciate all your hard work." Maybe some of the family can take it with them back to the hotel I thought.
Carlos seemed to agree with me. He put his hand on Ṍṅeáze's arm and said, "We are really grateful for all your hard work and the hard work of all your employees because we are only getting married once and we want everyone at the reception to enjoy themselves and the one thing I know about my family and my men is that they can eat and they will appreciate all the hard labor you put into making this food for them."
Ṍṅeáze harrumphed and said, "I was told you want a four-tier wedding cake." He smiled big. "I'm a French-trained gourmet pastry chef specializing in cakes and desserts so I must know what kind of cake you want and don't say vanilla. I can make all four-tiers different flavors."
"What are our choices?" I asked. My favorite cake was birthday cake with big buttercream roses and honestly this was what I was dreaming of for my wedding.
Ṍṅeáze smiled and went to one of the industrial refrigerators. He came back with two trays of little cakes lined up on little doilies. There were a dozen different kinds of cakes here and two rows of each kind.
"Part of your package includes this professional wedding cake consultation. This is really why you are here today. I am a pastry specialist and I will make you the most glorious cake! Here try this one." He offered me one.
"This one he said with a flourish is a spring favorite. This is called Pink Champagne. It uses pink champagne instead of water with a raspberry mousse and vanilla buttercream frosting."
It was bright pink, and I took the sample and took a little tentative taste. Oh, wonderful flavors of sweet vanilla with raspberry flowed across my tongue and I knew this would be a big hit, plus it was dark pink like my flowers and the colors of the wedding.
"It's wonderful! I love it and it will match with the colors of the wedding." I gushed.
"Very good, very good. We will make it the bottom layer. These are the ones you must try next." He offered me two different chocolate frosted cakes one darker than the other.
The first one was rich with a nutty flavor and chocolate and raspberry filling with mocha frosting. I liked the frosting, but the cake wasn't that great, it didn't make my taste buds sing and we already had one raspberry flavored layer. I was more of a purest and I wanted my chocolate to be just chocolate.
The second piece fit the bill. It was dark chocolate cake with chocolate ganache filling and dark chocolate frosting. It melted on my lips and made my tongue sing yes! I couldn't stop the moan that filled the room. It was delicious and I wanted this as part of my wedding cake. Forget all the luscious food he was cooking. I just wanted wedding cake as my feast.
He kept encouraging me to taste different little cakes and there was a lemon one but honestly, I wasn't much of a fruit person. I noticed that Carlos wasn't even trying the cakes but my mother and his mother and our grandmothers were trying all the different kinds and commenting on them, but I didn't care too much on what they had to say. Julie was having one of everything and mmming and uummming her way through the tempting desserts. But this was my wedding and my cake, and I was going to have it my way.
There was another citrusy one and an apple spice cake that wasn't bad, but it didn't do it for me. There was a red velvet but that wasn't one of my favorites either. A banana one that I almost spit out. I liked banana's; they were one of the few fruits I would buy and share with Rex, but the fake banana taste was awful to me. I liked banana bread just fine but those were real bananas. This overly sweet fake banana just didn't go with my cake.
Then I found it! A caramel vanilla cake with whipped dark chocolate filling and a salted caramel buttercream frosting. It was wonderful and I ate a second piece of it just because I liked it so much. I knew I was moaning through it and Chef Ṍṅeáze looked thrilled.
"I love this one. I could eat a whole cake made out of this!" I said. "I want this as the bottom layer because everyone must have a piece of this!" I insisted and everyone including Julie agreed and my mother even asked for the recipe. The recipe! Oh my! If I could make this for us at home, it would eclipse the chocolate cake that we loved so much!
He told us that this was a caramelized vanilla cake with a whipped chocolate ganache filling. Everyone agreed that this was the best one so far. I was even ready to stop trying the mini bites of cake and have this be the bottom and top.
At his insistence I kept trying different flavors and there was a chocolate cake with peanut butter filling that was good. A key lime one that was sweet and sour just like the pie. Another pink cake that turned out to be guava and I was looking forward to another chocolate piece that was chocolate and vanilla cake with mocha mousse and chocolate buttercream. It was really good, and we finally agreed that it could be the top.
Then I remembered that the top piece was traditionally saved and eaten on our first anniversary. Something about good luck and I wanted the caramelized vanilla cake to eat a year from now because it would remind me of this wonderful wedding and all it entailed.
"Wait," I announced. "I want the top layer of cake boxed up after the wedding so it can fly home with me, and I can freeze it. I want to be eating my wedding cake a year from now."
"Of course," Chef Ṍṅeáze agreed. "For you I was told we could do anything."
"I know I have to leave the reception first tomorrow but can one of you get the cake for me and bring it to our hotel room so it can fly home with us. On the private jet there is plenty of room and no one has to worry about stuffing it into their luggage." I asked looking at Mamma because I knew she would not interfere with our honeymoon she will be in and out where my grandmother will come with my mother and ask me questions about Carlos's package.
"I will gladly bring it to your room." Mamma jumped in to volunteered and my mother bit her tongue because she was going to volunteer.
"In that case. I want the top layer to be the caramelized vanilla cake with the chocolate filling. It is the best cake and I want to eat it a year from now." I said enthusiastically.
Chef Ṍṅeáze grudgingly agreed and wrote down my choices. The wedding cake taken care of Ṍṅeáze asked about the second dessert table. He said that with all the food they were cooking for us he would have to call in even more people if we wanted another table filled with different desserts.
Then he looked at Carlos and said, "Yyou didn't try any of the cakes, but I can make one of these for you as a groom's cake. What kind of cake would you want?"
"My favorite kind of cake and one I know my bride will love is Opera cake. Can you make an Opera cake for me?" Carlos was asking nicely but he and I suspected the Chef had been told to do whatever we asked.
Chef Ṍṅeáze looked disappointed and frustrated all at the same time. "Opera cakes take time and they are complicated. But I was told that what you want you get. So, one Opera cake for the groom we will do." He said as he wrote it down on the piece of paper.
"Those are all the choices I have for you today. Please excuse me, we have two receptions tonight that I must start to prepare for." With that he ushered us out of the kitchen, and we wandered back towards the front entrance.
At 1 pm we met with Shandra who took us into her dance studio. Our mothers, Julie and grandmothers stood against the far wall while she cued up our first song. Carlos began leading me around the room as effortlessly as he hhad the first time we went dancing.
"You two move well together have long have you been dancing together?"
I had to smile because this was only our second time dancing to music, but we moved so well together in the bedroom and in life it was as if we had always been together.
"This is our second time dancing together," Carlos said honestly.
"That is amazing you two look like you have been dancing together for years." She honestly assessed us.
We kept dancing and after a few more minutes she had some suggestions for us.
"Well I see I don't have to do much with you two," Shandra said and gave us a few ideas to make our first dance that much more appealing to watch. She had Carlos dip me low several times and twirl me out and twirl me back in, several times. Then she had him raise my arm over my head and twirl me in a circle which we practiced several times.
She taught us how to twirl one way holding each other's hands and how to twirl back to untangle our arms. She taught us several variations on this and how Carlos could spin me and turn around himself and catch me.
Then she started the song over again and walked him through when to dip me and twirl me and when to spin me out and bring me back. It was becoming more fun and Carlos had a big smile as he flung me around. She had us dance to it again and worked on holding our arms high and straight and holding our heads up and our spines straight.
She had us dance to it again and added more flourishes and when he dipped me, she had me raise my leg. She stopped us and we practiced him dipping me and me raising my leg. Then she started the music again and we went through it again but with all the spinning and flourishing and kicking and dipping it was more fun dancing together than we had ever had.
After several times through she stopped us and said she thought we had it down. Then she played some other songs for us to dance to and encouraged us to add in all the flourishes she had taught us. We went through several songs and he got more obvious in leading me, so I knew what he was going to do, and I got better at following him around.
This seemed like a silly thing; dance lessons for those of us who already knew how to dance but our dancing had greatly improved and I knew no matter where we went, we would gain a lot of attention for how well we moved together and all the moves we could do.
Carlos asked her about things we could do as we salsa danced and did the bachata because he had one song planned to dance the bachata too. She was very excitedextremely excited and had us show her our salsa dancing.
Carlos pulled me to him, and he started to move and move me around and we moved together like we been doing this for years. We were just so in sync and with the dancing I had done in college and all the years he had been dancing it was effortless. We kept moving and I watched his hips and his feet and how well he moved. He was not ashamed at all to be a man who could dance. In fact, he was proud of it.
Oh my god this was amazing! Carlos and I had never done any Latin or Cuban dancing, but we moved together like we were made for this. He had the moves down like he had been dancing the salsa all his life. And knowing his family and their parties he probably had been.
His hips and feet move like I have never seen. Even my partner in college never moved this smooth and he moved me with him spinning me and bringing me back and twirling me around and my favorite spinning me so we faced the same direction and pulling me back against him, hip to hip and our legs and feet moved as if they were one.
She of course added some flourishes to it, but she told us we moved together amazingly. That she had never had a couple move together so smoothly that had only just started dancing together.
Then she took Carlos and walked him through doing certain bachata moves. First the arms and body moving together but then she got up on him and was instructing him on how to move her body the way he wanted her to go.
If I wasn'tweren't so secure in our relationship, I would have been jealous and snatched her away by her hair and told her to keep her damn hands off my man. She was doing body rolls with him that had them touching chest to breast and hip to hip. But after leading him through it twice paired us up together and walked us through it.
"I have the perfect song for you two. It is current and hip and I have just been waiting to have somebody to dance to this song." She insisted and started a song playing.
I recognized it as something Julie would listen to. It was Marvin Gaye by Charles Puth. The lyrics started and we started dancing and it was amazing. Our arms up, bodies high but moving to the music fluidly. Then he would pull me close and move me around and when we did the body rolls, we really came together and at the places where our legs were intertwined with each other: our knees bent our hips touching, I could feel his hard length pressing against me and I thought we were going to be sooo hot on the dance floor. At the end of the two hours she had us dance to our song again and we did it even better this time.
Then she talked to us about our wedding party and planning how we would be going into the wedding and the reception and we told her we already did all that with Clarice. Carlos explained that Clarice was going to come in person and arrange everyone and everything for the wedding and the reception.
"You have to know that she wouldn't do that for just anyone, she must really like you," Shandra told us and I didn't know. I figured that she was doing it because she could charge us for it and it would be so worth it to have someone else come sweat the details and us just have to come and enjoy the wedding and the reception.
"Yeah, she has turned down couples who wanted to hire her so take it as the great complement it is. She must really think you are a special couple to do this for you." Shandra convinced me.
"Since you two already know how to dance so well together let me teach you something really special. Carlos you look strong enough to do this. I'm going to teach you how to lift her."
So, she put on more music and she taught Carlos how to lift me over his head by my hips like they did in Dirty Dancing and me how to do the swan thing lifting my arms and legs as he held me over his head and turned in a circle.
She taught him several lifts and me how to assist in the lift and how to kick my legs apart and lift my arms up high. She showed him how to lift me up from the side and spin us around together me with my arms held high. She taught us how I could start on one side of him and he could lift me as I jumped and fly me over to the other side of him.
The air conditioning was colder in this room than in the rest of the building so the beginning dancing we were doing wasn't getting me sweating but this did, and we were both sweating by the time we were done with this part.
I didn't know when we would ever use these moves it wasn't like we were going to compete on Dancing with the Stars, but it was fun to know we could do these things. It also engendered a level of trust in him that I knew I had but it built it up in a new way knowing I trusted him to lift me over his head and not drop me.
As we left, I realized that Lula and Connie would be at the hotel waiting for us. When we got back, they were so excited to see us and wanted to go out on the town. Carlos offered to take us to dinner and told us to get dressed up to go out. He had been wearing slacks and a button up shirt open at the collar and he added a jacket and a second gun. He had tried to talk me out of my gun this morning because it really didn't go with my dress, but I wore one under my arm and he wore an ankle holster.
I added a wrap because it was bound to get chilly. In thirty minutes, we met everyone down in the lobby. Carlos surprised me by hiring an SUV limo that we could all fit in and we took off to the Top of the World. The highest place to eat in Las Vegas.
The restaurant was at the top of the Stratosphere Tower that rotated 360 degrees with large glass windows that offered the best views of the strip. My father and his father joined us, and I wasn't sure how this multi-generational party was going to go because we had Julie with us, and I never drank around Julie. Partly because I always needed to be aware of my surroundings and also because I didn't usually drink and carry at the same time.
They weren't used to large parties like ours, but some money swiftly handed off from Carlos to the maître d' got two tables reserved so that we could have them when they were done eating. Once those tables were cleared, they were pushed together and with-in less than an hour we were all seated. Dinner was lively and conversation moved on with multiple conversations going on at the same time.
The food was great, and I even had a drink, but only one and I noticed that Carlos didn't drink any alcohol while Lula and Connie each had multiple drinks and our mothers and grandmothers went through two bottles of wine. It was good to see my friends, but all Lula could talk about was going out partying and all I wanted to do was go home to Carlos and lose ourselves in each other like we did every night.
After dinner everyone had plans to go see shows or to go out drinking and partying like Lula, so Carlos paid the limo driver to chauffer them around for the night and we went back to the hotel. Carlos's parents invited Julie to go with them to some magic show and my parents and grandmother were going to see Celine Dion.
We got back to the room and Carlos grabbed me and lifted me above his head and I struck the pose and he smiled up at me and I smiled down at him. Love shining out of our eyes because even with all of our friends and family around; we only had eyes for each other.
After two rounds we were laying sated and sweaty in each other's arms. I turned to him.
"Are you okay with how everything went today?"
"It went great considering," he said.
"You don't mind all the stuff our mothers kept adding to the ceremony?" I wondered.
"Nope. I flew my mother in early so she could have a say in the ceremony. I was going to let her add everything that she wanted. Remember what I said about planning the wedding is the fun part?"
"Yeah, not that I feel that way."
"Well my mother loves planning weddings and spent months planning all of my sisters's weddings. Letting her come and add all the little things to our wedding isn't much but it fulfills her need to be involved and feel like she helped plan our wedding."
"Oh."
"To mMamma that is just as important as her actually getting to see us get married. I know it was kinda aggravating for you and I'm sorry. But all those little things will mean a lot to mMomma and aAbuela for many years to come."
"Okay, when you put it that way. I know it meant a lot to my mMom that I invited her to come help. It's just that they kept saying we needed this, and we had to have that." I sighed.
"And every time they watch our video, and Babe my mother will watch our wedding video many, many times over the next year. She loves that stuff. She'll even invite you over to watch it with her and freeze frame it and tell you every shot she wants to put into a wedding album. Anyway, every time she watches it, she'll remember all the parts that she got to add, and it will mean a lot to her."
"Okay. It's just that I wanted a simple ceremony and it's gotten long and drawn out with all the stuff they added."
"It only seems that way. Trust me with all the stuff they added it's only going to be about thirty to thirty-five minutes long. All of my family that has flown halfway across the country to see this will appreciate the length. It will make it all seem more worthwhile than a quick 'I Do' that is over in five minutes."
"I guess."
"Trust me. My sister married an Episcopalian and the mothers couldn't agree on anything about the wedding. It was so bad my sister got fed up and got rid of everything religious. They had a civil ceremony and all they had was we are gathered here to see these two get married and the 'I Do' and it was over in less than five minutes and it made both mothers mad. So as aggravating as it is this will make my mother and probably your mother happy for years. Their happiness is worth a little aggravation."
"Okay. I know it will keep my mother off my back and that was all I am wanting. She got to input everything she wanted so she will be smiling big through the whole ceremony."
"I know this is a quote from somewhere else but it's basically 'we're getting married anyway might as well make everyone happy too'. I'm just surprised at mMoamma. Originally my sister was going to get married by a clergy in the Episcopalian church. Mamma argued and argued against everything Episcopalian and wanted some certain scriptures read, and some Catholic things added, and they couldn't of course. Subsequently, my sister had a strictly civil ceremony that really made Momamma unhappy."
"I can see that."
"I'm still surprised that she is happy with this non-denominational Christian wedding she helped plan. That she wants him to pray over us and give us that blessing that she helped write and read all those scriptures. She was really happy with it all and I'm glad because she knows we can't have a Catholic wedding."
"Yeah, my mMom too. Grandma would go along with anything I wanted but my mMother is more conservative, and I think she was really happy with how it turned out. Kinda like any Christian prayer is better than no prayer at all."
"Yeah, I think that's how my mMother is seeing it as well."
"Well, no matter what in two days we will be married, and it will all be over."
"When you first suggested we get married in these two weeks, I couldn't imagine it happening in a way that mMoamma would be happy with it. But she was ecstatic when we left there today."
"Well this is how I see it. We are essentially eloping to Las Vegas and we invited all of our family to come watch."
"Yeah that's a good way to look at it."
I tapped him to let me up and I went and dug around in my suitcase.
I laid down next to him with Abuela Rosa's book and said, "Since half of your family is coming in two days; I think I should get to know some of their names."
He opened the book and started with Abuela Rosa's kids and their spouses – his Aunts and Uncles. Then he worked on his brother, sisters, and their husbands. Because he knew they were all coming. When it came to his nieces and nephews, he didn't really know the names of anyone under the age of five and he confessed that he hasn't been around the family much these past few years. We branched out to his cousins that he knew were coming and the kids of theirs's that he remembered.
I knew I wouldn't remember everyone's name and face, but I had enough of Carlos's immediate family down and all of his aunts and uncles. It was plenty that I knew I wouldn't embarrass myself this Saturday.
To be continued…
A/N Thank you for reading and all your reviews. I will have more time to keep working on this story now. Send me happy writing thoughts. 😉
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