"Mum, it's my wedding!" Tonks said in exasperation, throwing her hands in the air.
"I don't care, you can't wear your leather jacket to your own wedding!"
"Sure I can! Like you said, it's my wedding!"
"It will look ridiculous over your dress."
Tonks crossed her arms and glared. "Who said I was even wearing a dress?"
"You are not wearing jeans to your wedding!"
See, that's how well her mother knew her that there wasn't even a gasp from Andromeda at her declaration. Only a stern admonishment.
"I was more going for my work trousers..."
Okay, that was a lie but it was fun to rile Andromeda up. Well, rile up was probably a little bit of an understatement... her mother currently looked like she had taken Pepper-Up Potion, she was just missing the steam.
"I'm not actually going to wear my work trousers," Tonks quickly assured her before any sort of scolding or shouting came.
Andromeda gave her daughter a suspicious look before deciding to trust her and relaxed, marginally anyway.
"But I don't want some sort of flouncy wedding dress either," Tonks continued.
"They aren't all flouncy," Andromeda said with an eye roll much like her daughter's.
"Yeah, but they're all... prissy."
She didn't have another word for it. All she knew that long white dresses with freaking trains just weren't her. At all. Not even a little bit. Seriously, the only time she wore a dress when there was some sort of stupid Ministry function she had to attend or if an op in work required it. Which had only ever happened once, by the way. She had been barred from such ops since because normally getting dressed up like she had required dancing and she couldn't dance. Trust her. The Auror Academy had tried. And failed quite spectacularly. She hadn't meant to shatter her instructors shin, it had kind of just... happened. She still wasn't sure how she had managed that but she had.
"Nymphadora, a wedding requires a bit of dressing up."
Tonks crossed her arms like a petulant child. "Doesn't mean I have to look like so.e stupid, fairy princess."
And anyway, it was barely a wedding too. Just someone from the Ministry to officiate it, some vows, signing names and maybe a small party? Minimal fuss. But apparently having barely anything to the wedding meant that her mother went completely insane about everything. Wasn't she meant to be the bride here?
"It is one day, Nymphadora. Not even. A few hours at most."
"A few hours too many!"
She wasn't getting into a stupid, traditional wedding dress and that was that. Mother amd daughter jad a staring contest and, surprisingly, Andromeda broke first.
"Stupid, bloody mule of a daughter," Andromeda muttered darkly, pinching the bridge of her nose and breathing deeply.
See? This is how bad it was getting, her mother was basically swearing. Definitely a bad sign.
"And who's fault is that?" Tonks asked cheekily.
Andromeda's lips twitched. "Your father's."
Tonks grinned at her.
"So about your dress..."
The loudest groan she could muster escaped her lips. "Mu-um!"
"Now, hear me out, Nymphadora. You have to wear a dress-" Tonks opened her mouth to argue but Andromeda just talked right over her. "- you have to wear a dress. But if you don't want a traditional wedding dress why don't you get a nice summer dress? You can get formal looking ones and you won't look like a, what did you say? A 'stupid fairy princess'?"
Tonks' mouth dropped open like it was a trap door. "Mum, you are a genius!"
"I've been known to have a good idea a time or two," she sniffed.
Tonks rolled her eyes but it really was a good idea. She could live with a summer dress. That would be far more comfortable and there were definitely styles that she liked. And she would avoid a load of awful lace.
Andromeda was all business again, moving onto the next concern. "Now, your flowers-" And there went another groan. Was that the third or the fourth? Andromeda was not amused. "Honestly, Nymphadora, you have to have flowers..."
Tonks tried not to make too loud of an exasperated noise. It was difficult but she managed it. Barely. Didn't her mother hear her when she said she wanted no fuss whatsoever? That meant no to endless flower arrangements in stupid pastel colours.
"Look, you could just have an archway of them where you and Remus stand and exchange vows. Look, like this." She pointed to a picture in the catalogue.
Tonks peered over and her eyebrows rose. That actually looked... well, it looked kind of nice.
"Not roses, though," she said, scrunching up her nose. They were too fussy and prissy and too perfect. She didn't want something like that. No way. That, and roses made Remus sneeze anyway. And his sneezes were either adorable or blow little pigs' houses down, if you get what she was saying. There was no in between. So definitely not a good idea to have roses.
"They have other options..."
So they did. Quite a few, actually. The ivy one looked kind of wicked... She pointed to two of them.
"I like these."
Andromeda checked the options.
"You can have both twine around the arch."
"Can we do that?"
"Perfect!"
Mother amd daughter grinned at each other in satisfaction.
"Well, at least that's one thing off the list." Andromeda said in a satisfied tone, literally ticking something off a piece of parchment that suddenly appeared next to her.
A long piece of parchment at that. Seriously, did her mum not understand the words "informal" and "simple"? Surely that amount of stuff wasn't necessary? There was just no way.
"Some things are crossed off already," Andromeda told her, noticing the bug-eyed pook on her face. "You already sorted out the licence and who is performing the ceremony. And you've decided what you want to do with your flowers. I'll cross that off completely when you order them."
"Hey, you can tick dress off that too," Tonks pointed out, reading off it from over her mum's shoulder.
"I am not ticking the dress off until we come to an agreement."
"But I've made a decision."
Andromeda gave her a stern look. "Yes. A decision. Not an agreement."
Tonks opened her mouth to argue that but was stopped by a firm glare. You know what? She could probably persuade her later. Yeah. Later. When her head wasn't filled so much woth wedding, wedding, wedding. No, Tonks wasn't chicken in out. With a sigh, Tonks let her shoulders slump in acquiescence.
Andromeda gave her a satisfied nod and returned to her ever-trusty list. "And that brings us nicely to invitations"
"Dad!" Tonks threw out a plea for help as Ted walked past.
"Not getting involved!" he replied, not stopping.
Tonks grumbled to herself while Andromeda rolled her eyes at both her daughter and her husband.
"Remus would be on my side."
"He's going to be your husband, of course he's going to be on your side."
Tonks couldn't help but grin ridiculously at that statement. Husband. Such a dimple word but it meant so, so much. Remus was going to be her husband and she was going to be his wife! Could there really be anything better? Well, for this war to be over, of course, but she was talking about achievable things here.