The guest list is always one of the most talked about preparations going into a wedding, so we get a nice little look at how the Cartwright's are doing it!

Joe's head just about spun at the flurry of excitement and pure motion that it turned out folks were happy to put into making this wedding happen.

Take his Pa, for example. Man was walking around like he was floating on air; going so far as to personally see to it that his soon to be son in law had something fitting to wear while he was wed to his youngest son.
Saddle tramp or no, no one marrying into his family was going to say his vows dressed in his 'finest' trail clothes. End of discussion.

So there'd come a day the head honcho of the Ponderosa himself hooked the red shirted ranch hand by the neck and dragged him off to town to have him 'fitted' for a decent suit. Something, it turned out, that complimented Joe's freshly tailored one perfectly.
Man, his pa had good taste in tailors.

Aside from the senior Cartwright's buoyant mood and generous contributions, there were also the many helping hands leant by Joe's brothers. Such as Adam practically organizing the entire affair on his lonesome, loath to allow another soul a single drop of input.
Thankfully, he allowed Joe to pick out the entertainment for the shindig. Otherwise there wouldn't have been any.

Hoss and Hop Sing, as it turned out, were in collusion over the food that was to be served and planned the cooking of it to last over an entire day. Even though they weren't likely to invite many folks for the-

"Welp," said Hoss as he ambled in through the ranch house's front door, catching the attention of more than one Cartwright lounging around the den. "I just found us two more wedding guests. Practically invited themselves too," he added with a note of pride.

"What? R-really? Who?" Joe asked in a quick staccato. Setting his mystery novel on the coffee table as he straightened and set his feet on the floor.

"Jody 'n' Amos. Overheard me tellin' the five pound tin of chocolate powder it was gonna live out the rest of its life as a weddin' cake and... oh, well, you can guess how it went from there," Hoss finished, with just a hint of bashfulness.

"Mmhm, that Jody used her stinging power of observation, and sharp wit to trick you into divulging the happy family secret," Adam ventured, a reassuring glance spared for his youngest brother.

"Well, you guessed it alright," Hoss said with a tiny grimace. "And it's exactly why I don't like goin' there on my own. That girl's tougher'n nails and has a mind like a bear trap."

"Ha! Way to pay a lady a compliment!" Joe cackled from his seat in the armchair.

"It's the most 'complimentary' I can be when it comes to that Jody-"

"Oh, well now, Hoss," came a voice from the office space off to the side, over where Hoss hadn't bothered so much as glancing since walking in. "I'll have to let Amos know how high in your regard you hold his only daughter." The voice of their pa had the middle brother cringing all over again. Strong as it was and playing at chipper in that 'watch your step now' way the father had long ago perfected.

"Oh, Pa, you know I didn't mean nothin' by it," Hoss reasoned, hoping for mercy.

"There may be two weddings if he has any say in the matter," responded an amused Ben Cartwright, hands clasped atop a small pile of papers on his desk.

"No, Pa, you don't understand; that Jody is a menace and she-"

"Was nice enough to RSVP to the invitations which I sent to her and her father days ago. I only now received the answer," the man behind the desk explained, holding up the topmost sheet of previously folded paper. Eyebrows raised in fond reproach.

"You mean to tell me that Jody already knew about... everything?" Asked Hoss, obviously at a loss over the whole situation, who then turned back to the living room to eye an especially entertained 'Little' brother of his.

"Now don't go harping on to your brother about not 'warning' you; it was Candy's idea to invite them," mollified the man happily riffling through the stack of papers before him.

"Hey, wait a second. Just how many of those 'RSVP' letters you got there, Pa?" Asked a Joe who suddenly felt just as left out as he figured Hoss did.

"Oh, just a few. The good news is, they're all affirmatives," Ben said with a flourish as he laid out a few sheets of paper of varying size, thickness, and color. Looking as if they'd originated from very different places.

"Lemme see those-"

"Gol darn it, Pa, when were you gonna-"

"-it is me getting married in front of all these people after all!"

"-come clean and show us the guest list?"

The man with all the proverbial cards chuckled at his sons' ridiculousness as he watched them scramble across the room. Movements harried, as if they thought he might eat the letters before they could see them for themselves.
With a chuckle, he pushed the letters to the edge of the desk, in plain view, and said, "Oh, over dinner. Tonight's dinner. Within the next hour, but I don't figure this pre-meal treat will spoil your appetite."

Joe caught the twinkle in his pa's eye as he and Hoss each snatched up a handwritten correspondence.
"It says here that, 'Doctor Rosebaum And Mister Rosebaum humbly accept your i-invitation and wish your family the best." Joe found his hands shaking just the slightest bit as he read aloud, wondering as he did whether they'd ever be steady again, now that this wedding was really, irrefutably, officially happening.
It now had guests after all. A party couldn't get more official than that.

"This'n says, 'Dear Mr. Cartwright,' I wonder which of us they mean by that?" Mused Hoss with a scrunch of his face. "We are indeed well and we are all the weller at the wonderful news you have sent us. We will bring wine and spaghetti. Many happy regards to the grooms, the Rossi family.' Well ain't they somethin'?" Hoss asked as he set down the sheaf and picked up another.
After about three seconds of scrutinizing the new one though, he turned it towards the man behind the desk accusingly. "This is a bill of sale, not an RSVP."

Joe chuckled along with their pa as Hoss flopped the offending paper back on the desk and picked up a less official document.

"Hm. Well, looks like the Honorable Sheriff Roy Coffee's gonna make it as well," Hoss said, before turning to the den and shaking the paper in Adam's direction. "None of this surprise you, oh eerily quiet brother of mine?"

"Hm? Oh, no. You see, dear, easily shocked brother of mine, it was I who hand delivered the letters of invitation. I wasn't leaving anything to chance on this one," Adam informed from his end of the day sprawl on the sofa.

"Is that why you've been 'out' so often recently?" Joe asked of the man who notoriously never took a break, but who'd up and vanished more than once in the last week to ten days.

"See, Hoss, someone was paying attention," Adam said, in as playful a voice as the man in black possessed. Prompting a 'face' from the middle brother by the desk.

"Yeah, well... I'm helping make the cake, so you better climb off your high horse and soon mister, or-"

"Hoss, I know you weren't about to imply that you'd jeopardize the quality or safety of your little brother's wedding cake. Or am I somehow mistaken?" Ben asked. Face bordering on hard.

Joe felt himself take a step back at his father's stern words. At the suggestion that a member of his own family might do something so- so...
"Hoss?" He couldn't help asking, wishing his voice hadn't come out so raw. Knowing there was nothing he could do about how big his eyes had grown, nor about how very, very young he felt in that moment.

"Joe, I didn't mean it," he heard his brother say, as he watched the man who stood inches taller than him set the forgotten letter on the desk and turn to him, face contrite. "Honest. I'd never do a thing to ruin your big day. Not to you and not to that fool fiancé of yours," Hoss assured, grabbing his brother by both shoulders to be sure he heard every comforting word.

Joe was almost ashamed by how much relief the earnest statement brought him. But all that self consciousness melted away when his bear of a brother engulfed him in a gentle hug. The big guy going so far as to rest his head on top of Joe's well kept curls. Where the shorter man felt a deep rumble as his brother began to speak, low and quiet and sincere.

"I love you, Little-"

"Don't call me tha-"

"-Joe," Hoss finished despite the warning.

"My, my," said a familiar, colorful voice from off by the door no one had noticed someone open. "If it isn't my fiancé, huggin' another man who claims to love him. I never thought I'd see the-"

"It's not what it looks like!" Swore Hoss as he released his hug like Joe was a particularly hot potato. "Swear it! I'm the man's brother!"

"Oh, a likelier story I've never heard, siren of the deep!" Candy accused in an over the top way that perfectly mirrored Hoss's ridiculousness.

Joe ended up laughing so hard he just about doubled over.

Before things could get any further out of hand, a voice of perpetual reason in Joe's chaotic life cut through the good natured ribbing like the ringing of a dinner bell cut through the dust of a Ponderosa cattle drive.
"Dinner ready! Get cold! Hurry, or everything all go bad!"

"Well, that's the only sensible thing I've heard all evening!" Ben declared as he rose from his desk and led the charge for the dining table covered in an absolutely mouth watering, Hop Sing prepared dinner.

Must've been some of the chef's finest work, Joe mused as he took his seat, for the taciturn cook took it upon himself to grace them with his presence and claimed the seat at the other end of the table as his.
Not that his second paternal figure didn't sit with them often enough, just, for some reason, that evening, with the wedding shaping up to be something that was actually going to happened, it felt like he was helping them celebrate their good fortune.

So Joe had to suppress a smile all through dinner, just so food wouldn't fall out his mouth while he ate. And that was alright with him, 'cause he had his whole family there, joking and poking and having a good time around a table their pa had hand hewn back when Joe could barely walk.

If this wasn't the good life, Joe thought as he glanced at his fiancé, sitting right next to him and looking like he was suppressing a smile of his own, then he guessed he'd find out pretty soon what was. After all: the two of them were getting married.

For those wondering who in tarnation the Rossi family is:

They make their first appearance on Bonanza in the episode Big Shadow On The Land, season 7, episode 29. They also make appearances in The Deed And The Dilema, season 8, episode 27, and in The Sound Of Drums, season 10, episode 10.
The Rossi family is a mature mom and dad, and their teenage (or older) son and daughter who immigrated from Italy and made the trip west to settle in Nevada.

Hope y'all enjoyed! Thanks for reading!