"You're like a four-year-old on a sugar high," Buffy comments to Willow, who is bouncing on her toes. "And if you keep on doing that, you're gonna lose your balance," she adds, glancing at her best friend's high heels.
"Did you see her dress?" Willow asks for the seventh time, turning excitedly to Buffy. "And her hair—did you see her hair? She's curling it, you know, special, for—"
"Yeah, yeah, Will, I saw it," Buffy laughs, and leans forward to attempt to smooth down Willow's hair. Willow sheepishly stops bouncing, but her grin doesn't diminish. "How do I look?" Buffy asks, twirling in her lavender dress.
"Very nice," Willow replies approvingly. "It's a good color on you."
"It looks best on you, though," Buffy comments. "Better with your hair."
Willow beams. She's absolutely radiating joy today, and Buffy can understand why; everything is looking like it'll go pretty much perfectly. The weather is sunny, but with a slight breeze in the air that ruffles the grass. The guests are all finding their way to their seats, everyone dressed to the nines. Apparently Ethan Rayne tried to sneak his way in, but Xander and Anya apprehended him before he could cause any damage.
It kind of makes Buffy want to laugh when she imagines Ethan Rayne faced with Anya, who's determined that everything will go absolutely perfectly today and seems ready to murder anyone who stands in the way. Xander seems to be slightly turned on by that, though, which grosses Buffy out. Significantly.
Tara hurries up to them, stealing a quick kiss from Willow. Buffy feigns interest in a nearby tree.
Noticing that she and Willow aren't alone, Tara pulls away from her girlfriend. "Hey," she says to Buffy, shyly, and seems a little more at ease when the Slayer gives her a warm smile.
"I think the lavender dress looks best on Tara, actually," Willow tells Buffy (although the comment is clearly directed at her girlfriend), her hand moving to clasp Tara's. Tara ducks her head with a crooked smile.
"Bouquets!" Anya shouts, still in her wedding planning flurry, running up to all of them and shoving a bouquet of mismatched flowers into each girl's hand. "God, these are awful," she adds, glancing at her own with a frown. "They look like someone picked random wildflowers and put them all together for their bouquet. I did suggest that the flowers should have been something more traditional, like roses—"
"Yeah, well, us Scoobies never were very traditional," points out Xander, stepping up to all of them and extending his arm to Anya. She takes it, jerking her head at Buffy, Willow, and Tara to find their partners and do the same. Willow links arms with Tara, in preparation to walk down the aisle, and Buffy waits with a lingering smile for Riley to join them.
"Where's Riley?" Willow asks, glancing around slightly worriedly. "We're gonna have to start walking any minute now."
"The flower girl still isn't here yet," Xander reassures her. "We've got about three more minutes. Riley's making sure Giles is ready to step out onto the little…" He waves his hand vaguely. "What do you call that thing the groom stands on to wait for the bride?"
"What, you think he's gonna get cold feet?" Buffy asks. "That isn't really his style."
"Nah, he's just worrying about basically everything," says Xander. "I would have stayed, but after he stopped worrying that Ms. Calendar was going to just, uh, 'come to her senses,' run away and leave him at the altar—"
"Actually, were I Giles, I'd be the one running away from her," Anya comments, seemingly calmed by the opportunity to put her two cents in. "A lot of married women make vengeful wishes nowadays. Do you know how many distraught new brides I catered to in my last year as a vengeance demon alone?"
There are a few moments of awkward silence before Xander finally says, "An? I think we had that talk about not mentioning all of the weddings that you've seen go wrong."
"Yes, but you said Giles was worried," Anya points out, "and you appear to think that his worries aren't valid. I simply wished to defend him."
Xander looks extremely conflicted, like he can't decide whether Anya is being endearing or ridiculous. The expression on his face is so silly that Buffy and Willow both have to stifle their giggles. Finally, he manages, "Great. Uh, glad that you're defending Giles. Good to know."
"Speaking of Giles," says Buffy, "you said he stopped worrying?"
Xander glances over at Buffy. "Well," he says slowly, drawing out the word, "I mean, he's still worried, but it's just him being all obsessive at this point, so I decided that—"
"What is he worried about now?" Willow asks.
"Like I said, he's being—" Xander begins, but at Willow's and Buffy's pointed looks, he grudgingly replies, "Whether or not anyone's going to trip while they're walking down the aisle."
This makes the bridesmaids all start smirking, save Anya, who gives her boyfriend's arm a reassuring squeeze and tells him, "Well, that's why they have rehearsals, Xander. Imagine if you had fallen into that row of chairs now, with all the people in them!"
"Thanks, An, that really helps," says Xander sarcastically.
Anya grins proudly, pleased that she's reassured Xander, and rests her head against his shoulder. He glances down at her with this small smile that's slightly different from his usual goofy grins.
"Actually, I think that that's a more serious problem than Ms. Calendar being a runaway bride," Buffy whispers to Willow. "I mean, there's no way she would run out on Giles, but Xander trips over like everything."
"Shh!" says Willow, not very vehemently, and elbows her, turning away so she can pretend her smile is due to Tara and not to amusement at Xander's expense.
The flower girl—apparently one of Ms. Calendar's many relatives—runs up, her dark hair tied back in a loose bun that bobs as she sprints up to the Scoobies. She looks about to drop the basket of flower petals, and Willow (who always seems to have a knack with little kids; this has become more and more apparent as more and more relatives arrive in Sunnydale for the wedding) kneels down, letting go of Tara's arm to say gently, "Hey, Alina, you might wanna slow down a little, okay? That way, people get to see how pretty you look in your new dress."
Alina nods obligingly, and does a little twirl not unlike Buffy's to show off her adorable pink dress to Willow. Willow smiles as if she's never seen anything more wonderful, causing the girl to return her grin delightedly.
Riley comes up behind Buffy and takes her arm, pressing a little kiss to her cheek. "Hey," he says softly. "Excited?"
Buffy smiles slowly and looks around. Ahead of them, she can see the small pavilion, full of guests. Giles has taken his place at the altar, and is fidgeting nervously with his bow tie, which makes Buffy want to giggle. Behind them, Ms. Calendar—soon to be Mrs. Giles—is most likely waiting in the bridal tent for her cue, slightly hyped up on caffeine. Actually, Buffy knows that the second part is true; she'd stopped by the bridal tent with a cup of coffee and found out ten minutes later that Willow and Xander had both done the exact same thing.
"Yeah," she says. She rests her head against Riley's shoulder, briefly. "Yeah."
It's not exactly true. She's not really that excited. Giles and Ms. Calendar have acted like a married couple for a long while now, back in senior year when Ms. Calendar would fuss every time Giles came in with a bruise, and Giles would shush anyone who came into the library late because Ms. Calendar had fallen asleep in his office, and Xander came into the library that one time to find Ms. Calendar trying to teach Giles Romanian so that he could talk to her cousins.
Besides which, Buffy's come a long way from seeing Ms. Calendar as The Computer Teacher Giles Is Dating. Now Ms. Calendar is the one who starts a chess game with Willow when they're researching late at night, and writes corny, cheery phrases like Spread a little joy on Buffy's bandages just so that they can both start giggling at the stupidity, and covers for Xander when he throws a book, or drops a book, or spills something on a book.
Ms. Calendar's a Scooby. And it makes sense for her to want to marry Giles. Giles is awesome, and loyal, and when Buffy thinks "chivalry" she always imagines him. Chivalry is such a Giles-y word, all old-fashioned and dorky but something it took Buffy a while to realize she admired.
Buffy feels her smile grow to a big grin at the thought of the sentimental vows Giles showed her, and the classy-chic wedding dress Ms. Calendar was wearing when she took Buffy's coffee, and the pretty, mismatched bouquet that Ms. Calendar plucked a daisy out of and told Buffy to give it to Giles.
Anya might be wrong about the mismatched bouquet. It's eccentric, and you wouldn't think it would work because of all of the contrasting colors, but when you look at it for a while you start to see the way the contrasts actually give the bouquet a sense of unity.
The music begins to play, and Alina skips ahead, scattering flower petals left and right.