A/N: A Wedding part 1
I have no clue what's going to happen in this chapter other than there's been a time jump from November 21 to January 2. I wrote all about the holidays in Where In the World Is Brittana? and I didn't want to repeat myself (more than I probably already have).
I'm also not sure how many chapters are left. This may be the last one but I think … there's probably one (maybe two) more after this. Maybe one and a short epilogue. Let's find out.
I did a little research to find "Amish Country" in Indiana and found Shipshewana, IN to be the most likely candidate for where Whitney went into labor and gave birth to Brittany.
Xoxoxoxoxoxoxo
Chapter 17 – Lima, OH/Shipshewana, IN (January 2 – 3, January 9 – 12)
January 2, 2015
Maribel, Whitney, and Artie were talking about the barn and what would/could be done about the wedding and reception.
Santana had pulled Brittany aside. "You okay?"
"Just thinking … all those times my mom yelled 'were you born in a barn' for leaving the door open … I could have said yes." Brittany just looked blankly at Santana. "I mean, seriously? Stephen Hawking. Handcrafted Amish ELECTRIC fireplaces. A barn. A little cow. A Mr. Submarine wrapper. What … I don't even know how to process all of this, San."
"Oh, honey." Santana pulled Brittany into a hug.
"Do you really want to get married here, San?" She asked quietly. "I mean … it's a barn."
"Honestly, Britt?" Santana pulls back and looks into those beautiful ocean blues. "I don't care. As long as, when the day is over, I can say 'there's my wife' … I'm good. The where, when, how … don't really matter a whole lot to me. I just wanna marry you."
Brittany just sighed. "I love you."
"I think, honestly, it'll be fine. Artie and my mom and Kurt … all of them will work to make sure everything is perfect. We're about two and a half hours from Lima so we should see if there's a hotel willing to give us a deal on a block of rooms. And, maybe we can spend a couple of days here after the wedding and do some exploring."
Brittany smiled and nodded. "Okay. If you're okay with all of this."
Santana leaned in and kissed her softly. "At the end of the day, as long as there are rings on our fingers saying I'm yours and you're mine, I'm good."
xoxoxoxoxoxo
They had found a beautiful Inn about half an hour away from the barn and, since it was the off-season, they were given a really good deal on a block of twenty rooms.
They were a little afraid that, when they booked the honeymoon suite for themselves, the Inn would cancel the deal but the woman at the desk didn't even blink. She smiled and gave them the rate and asked if they wanted to hold any of the rooms in the block. They put a hold on one for Santana's mother and one for Whitney, Pierce, and Courtney. The others would be first come, first serve.
While they were there, they booked two suites of rooms for themselves and the friends who would be helping get the barn cleaned up and decorated. They booked the suites for January ninth through the twelfth and again from February thirteenth through the sixteenth.
They left Shipshewana and headed back to Lima after making sure the elderly owner of the barn was okay with them having the wedding there. He and his wife were more than happy to give them the use of the barn, free of charge, since they were going to clean it up before and after.
Now that they had the venue, they could start making plans for catering, flowers, invitations, dresses, rings, and the cake. Artie had already promised to take care of the music.
The drive back to Lima was fairly quiet; Maribel and Whitney were in the front seat chatting quietly while Santana dozed on Brittany's shoulder and Artie wrote plans in his "Wedding Planner's Notebook".
The day had been … eye-opening, to say the least, and Brittany wasn't sure what to make of everything. Then she looked to her left and saw Santana's head on her shoulder and realized … none of it mattered; Santana and she were getting married and that was all that did matter.
Xoxoxoxoxoxo
January 3, 2015
Santana and Brittany got up early and headed out to find a stationery store that handled invitations. The first two refused to help them because it was a same-sex marriage; Santana unleashed Snixx and her vicious words left behind several fear-and-tear filled people.
"Damn idiots," she muttered as they pulled into the third store.
"San … take a deep breath. We don't want to go into this place ready to tear people apart before they've even had a chance to say anything. Third time's a charm, right?"
Santana nodded and took a deep breath, leaned over the center console and pecked Brittany's lips.
They exited the car and walked into the shop. It was smaller than the other two but felt … comfortable. There was an older man with gray hair hunched over a desk at the left rear of the shop and an older woman with brown hair shot through with gray manning the front counter on the right hand side.
The woman smiled at them. "Can I help you ladies?"
Brittany smiled at the woman. "We hope so. We, um, need wedding invitations."
"For the two of you?"
"Yes." Brittany's answer was a bit tentative.
"Do you know what you're looking for?" The woman's smile softened at Brittany's hesitation.
Brittany's smile widened a bit when the woman didn't dismiss them. She shook her head. "Not really?"
The woman stepped from behind the counter and led them to library table with several large photo-type albums on it.
"I'm Gert. That's my husband Jeremy."
"I'm Brittany, this is Santana."
Gert nodded and tilted her head and narrowed her eyes in thought, looking at Santana, Brittany braced herself for the inevitable … that never came. Gert didn't ask about the ad simply nodded to herself, as though she'd solved a puzzle, and smiled again.
"Everything we have are in these albums. There's a lot of them. So let me ask you a few questions and see if we can't narrow it down, hm?" She gestured for them to take a seat and she sat across from them.
"How long have you been together?"
"On and off … about six and half years. We've been best friend since we were fourteen." Brittany answered.
The woman nodded and discarded a few of the albums.
"First marriage for both of you?"
They both nodded and the woman removed two more of the albums; still leaving over ten of them. The woman pulled two from the stack of ten.
"Start with these, I think they'll most likely have something you'll be happy with. Call me over if you find something or if you get through them and haven't found anything." She smiled again and got up to go man the front counter again.
They leafed through the first book page-by-page, commenting on a few they liked, but nothing really grabbed them. It was on the third page of the second book that they both gasped.
"Brittany …"
"Santana ..."
They both pointed to an ecru invitation with brown ink and a slightly ragged edge. The ink was of two hands with linked pinkies and a thin red thread wrapped around their wrists in the infinity symbol. The lettering said "This day I will marry my best friend. The one I laugh with, live for, dream with, love."
They looked at each other. "That's it." They said to one another.
They both broke into big grins. It was perfect.
"Gert?" Brittany called to the woman.
She came bustling back over. "Found something?"
They pointed to the invitation and Gert smiled brightly. "I had a feeling," she said.
She opened a drawer on the table and they set about filling in the form with the proper inside information and the names to be imprinted on the infinity symbol. They decided to order two hundred and fifty even though they were pretty sure they wouldn't need that many. They put half down for a deposit and were promised they'd be ready for pick-up by January seventh. They smiled brightly and thanked Gert again as they walked, hand-in-hand, back out to the car; their steps a tad lighter having found, not only someone to print their invitations, the perfect invitations.
Xoxoxoxoxo
They stopped at a small diner for lunch.
"Okay, so, when we get back we need to finalize the guest list and make sure we have all the addresses we need." Santana said. "I'll have to call my mom about some of my aunts and uncles and cousins. Well, the ones that are still speaking to me." She sighed.
Brittany bit her bottom lip as she looked at Santana. Santana waited.
"Um …" Brittany sighed, "do you maybe want to send an invitation to your abuela?"
Santana shook her head. "No. She made her choice and she made it clearly. I … I don't want to send it only to have her return it unopened." Her voice faltered a little.
Brittany nodded and squeezed Santana's hand gently. "Okay. I just wanted to check. What about Quinn?"
"Yeah, we'll send her one. It sucks that she can't be there but I get it. That study abroad thing is an amazing opportunity and it was set up before we decided to get married. I'd have said we'd wait until she gets back but … that puts us really close to summer session if we get into school and what if she gets an offer to stay?" Santana shrugged. "We'll send her the video or watch it with her when she gets back or something. It almost feels wrong to get married without her."
Brittany smiled. "Yeah." She hesitated. "Your dad?"
Santana shook her head. "No. Absolutely not. Not unless or until he apologizes to you for real. Mom will get an invite and she'll know he isn't welcome if he hasn't apologized to you."
Brittany nods. "Okay, honey. Anyone else we want or don't want?"
Santana shrugged. "No one I can think of off the top of my head."
They talked about wedding stuff while they ate before finally heading home.
Xoxoxoxoxoxoxo
(time jump from January 3 to January 9)
January 9 – 12
January 9
Brittany walked into the room she and Santana were sharing and found all the lights off; Santana was lying on the bed, an arm over her face and a throw blanket draped over her legs.
Brittany walked into the bathroom, came out with two painkillers, and grabbed a bottle of water from the mini-fridge. She sat on the edge of the bed.
"Here, baby, take these." She offered the meds and the water to her brunette.
Santana moved her arm and slightly sat up, taking the pills and the water. "How did you know?"
"Foremost expert ..." Brittany smiled softly.
Santana chuckled and flopped back on the bed, her arm finding its way back over her eyes.
Brittany slipped in next to her and laid her head on Santana's shoulder; Santana's free arm automatically wrapped around Britt's shoulders.
"Wanna talk about it?"
Santana sighed. "People suck. Snixx was busy today.
"Went to four catering companies; the first three refused to talk to me because we're same-sex. The fourth one was booked for our weekend but he was a really nice guy and gave me a card for a newer company. Told me to tell the woman who owns it that he sent me over and she'd help us out. She was really sweet. We're meeting with her at eleven-thirty tomorrow morning for tasting and menu selection.
"Then it was two homophobic bakeries. Thankfully, the third one was more than happy to work with us. We're going there at three-thirty to do the tastings and decide on design.
"The first florist I went to didn't even blink when I told him we were same-sex. Of course, I'm pretty sure he's gay. We're meeting with him at one day after tomorrow. How was your day?"
Brittany winced. "Um, I had a bit of a freak out. I was convinced the barn was going to collapse and kill everyone."
Santana stifled a chuckle. "Britt …"
"Yeah, I know. Then I was thinking about how we haven't had final fittings … then I remembered that we haven't even gone dress shopping at all yet. And Martina Navratilova can't officiate but Kurt said his father can do it so he's going to talk to Burt for us. I did get to troll Kurt and Tina a little bit though, so that was fun and relieved some stress."
"Okay. So, catering – oh, the caterer will do beverage service as well – cake, flowers, and officiant will be set up in the next couple of days," Santana listed off, "invitations are already out and RSVPs are starting to come in. We'll need to … shit … I forgot about a photographer. Maybe the caterer, baker, or florist can point us in the right direction. I really don't want to deal with any more idiots."
Brittany sighed and snuggled in closer. "So, dresses, bridesmaid dresses, the guys can all wear white jackets and black ties. We need to find rings. Anything else?"
"Nothing I can think of. How does the barn look?"
"It's actually starting to look really good. Kurt and Artie rented some stained-glass windows to fit in the open window spaces. The tulle looks good with the fairy lights. I think … I think it's going to look just how I wanted. Like heaven." She tipped her face up and kissed the underside of Santana's jaw. "For my angel."
Santana chuckled.
"You feeling any better?"
"Well enough to go get some dinner if you want."
"Sounds good."
xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo
January 10 – 12
They met with the caterer the following day and the food was amazing. Santana was surprised at how good it was. They set the menu and gave the woman a deposit before going to meet with the baker.
Xoxoxoxoxoxoxo
The baker was ready for them with dozens of tasty treats. They settled on a vanilla cake with raspberry filling on the bottom and top tiers, with marbled yellow/chocolate in the center two tiers. All the tiers would have buttercream frosting. They also ordered a variety of cupcakes, cookies, and pastries for later in the evening. They gave him a deposit and spent the rest of the day just wandering around the town of Shipshewana.
Xoxoxoxoxoxox
The next day they met with the florist who was incredibly helpful. He knew so much about flowers and arrangements and which would hold up best throughout the day. They asked him about a photographer and he mentioned that his partner had a studio so they were able to solve that problem. He called his partner, who came right over, and they were able to set up what they wanted in terms of pictures and video. They left the flower shop happy, having given both the florist and photographer deposits.
Xoxoxoxoxoxoxo
When they left for Lima the following morning, they were feeling pretty good about how much they had gotten accomplished. When they came back to Shipshewana in February, almost everything would be done; they would just have to finish the barn and touch base with their vendors.
They were a little tired but at least they were no longer completely overwhelmed with everything they needed to get done.
Xoxoxoxoxoxo
A/N: Santana's problem with her father was chronicled in Negotiating the Terms Of Our Reconciliation.
This is what the invitation I had in mind looks like – only with the hands instead of the little kids:
https: (/) .com(/) originals (/) fb (/) ff (/) 20 (/)
and this is a (really) rough idea of what the art looks like:
https: (/) .com (/) system (/) resources (/) previews (/) 004 (/) 851 (/) 960 (/) large_2x (/)
(hopefully, if you're interested, those things will work...sometimes FF is totally annoying)
