Lissa arrived two days later. Katerina was very excited to see her, as predicted, and kept chanting Lissa's name during the entire drive to the airport. Levi was sound asleep in his car seat, and I had to remind Katerina a few times to lower her voice so as to not wake him up.

When we arrived at the airport, Katerina ran to Lissa as soon as she saw her, and Lissa swung her into her arms, with Katerina laughing the entire time. Dimitri hung back with Levi while I followed Katerina and hugged Lissa.

We had to do a little rearranging for Lissa to be able to fit in between Katerina's and Levi's car seats, but we made it work, and Lissa immediately requested that we get lunch. Dimitri picked a Thai place close to downtown since Lissa had other plans for wedding planning today that were near downtown.

The small restaurant was busy, but the service was quick, and the food was delicious. My appetite was still a little off, and I managed to eat two-thirds of my Pad Thai before pushing the bowl across the table for Dimitri to finish, as he had ordered the same and already finished it. He gave me a look but ate the rest of my dish regardless.

Lissa pulled out a small calendar. "Okay, so the beginning of August is usually a very popular time to get married so we might have a little trouble with finding a venue, but luck might be on our side too. I was thinking August eighth. That gives us about a month and a half to get everything planned, plus it's a Thursday, which will hopefully work in our favor of getting a good venue since it's not a weekend day."

I looked at Dimitri, and he shrugged, trying to hide a smile. "I'm good with August eighth, if you are."

"Sounds good."

Lissa looked up from her calendar. "Okay, great. For venues, did you have anywhere in mind?"

"I was thinking somewhere outside, maybe Barton Creek Springs so we're near the water and nature combined?"

Lissa nodded. "I'll do some research and see if I can find anything. Do you have a guest list?"

"Lissa, to be perfectly honest with you, I haven't considered a single part of the planning yet. I could name a few people off the top of my head, but other than that, no, I do not have a guest list."

Lissa sighed. "We have so much work to do."

"Good thing you're here, right?" I said with a cheeky smile.

Dimitri dropped us at the bridal shop a few blocks away from the restaurant and told us to text him when we were done. Katerina was sad to be separating from Lissa again so soon but forgot all about us when Dimitri promised to take her to the park.

Lissa had booked an appointment with the bridal shop, but as soon as we walked into the store, I knew that I wasn't going to find anything that I liked here. I gave Lissa a look, and she shrugged.

"Liss, none of these dresses are my style," I said, looking around again.

"You might be surprised," she said. "Just take a look around."

I did as she asked, but the more I looked at the dresses, the more I knew that there wasn't anything that I was comfortable wearing. Almost everything had a deep v-neck or an open back, and I didn't want either of those things.

I gave Lissa a look, and she apologized to the sales associate for wasting their time before we walked out of the shop. Lissa spent a few minutes on her phone before she grabbed my arm and led me away.

"C'mon. I think I found a store that you'll like."

Ten minutes later, we arrived at another bridal shop, but this one was smaller than the last, and there was a small sticker in the window that read "shop local". I smiled, having loved all of my past experiences with local Austin boutiques.

"Hi, ladies, my name is Stacy. How can we help you today?" A younger woman approached us, a wide smile on her face.

Already I felt more comfortable, considering the last sales associate hadn't even said a word to me.

"I'm getting married at the beginning of August, and I need a dress," I said.

"Well, I can definitely help with that," she said. "What kind of dress were you looking for?"

"Something simple and modest. I don't want a lot of skin showing or cleavage or anything like that."

Stacy nodded and turned. "Follow me. I have a few dresses in mind that I think you might like."

She led us over to a rack against the back wall that featured a variety of gowns that were on the modest side. Some were sleeveless while others had either long sleeves or three-quarter sleeves. She pulled out three dresses to show us and led us to a smaller dressing area.

The first dress was a long sleeve with a plain white bodice and tulle skirt. The collar line was a scoop neck in the front and the back, but neither cut was deep. The second dress was sleeveless with a floral embroidered lace bodice and a tulle skirt that also had flowers embroidered into the top layers. The third dress was another long sleeve that was similar to the sleeveless in terms of the lace embroidered bodice, but the skirt was plain tulle. The moment I saw it, I knew it was the one.

Lissa helped me into the gown, zipping up the back, before having me turn in a circle to show her the full view.

"Rose, you're gorgeous," she said. "It's perfect."

I looked at myself in the mirror, and I knew her words were true, even if it took a moment for me to myself in the same way. I agreed that it was perfect.

"How much is it?" My palms were sweaty as I hoped that it wasn't going to be thousands of dollars.

Stacy flipped the tag on the dress over to get the name before typing it into her tablet.

"This dress is actually currently part of our summer sale, so it is selling for five hundred and forty-nine dollars," she said. "Altercation prices depend on how much work you need to be done and how fast you need it done, but it doesn't seem like you a need a lot of altercations."

"It's perfect," I said. "I'll take it."

We met back up with Dimitri an hour later at a bakery nearby. Lissa had booked us for a cake tasting while she was going a couple of blocks over to arrange things with a florist.

We tried classic cake flavors such as vanilla, chocolate, and red velvet, but also a few different flavors. The bakery had prepared samples of their chocolate raspberry, cookies and cream, peanut butter cup, salted caramel, carrot, white chocolate, strawberry shortcake, and chocolate mint cakes for us to try as well.

Lissa rejoined us when we were halfway through the samples and joined us in ranking them. I groaned once we had finished, both full of the cake and because there was no simple answer.

"This is so hard," I complained. "There are too many good flavors."

Emilia, the baker helping us, laughed. "That seems to be a common problem. What I've seen other couples do in the past in a classic vanilla cake and cupcakes in a variety of different flavors."

She pulled out her phone and showed us a few displays of what she had described from previous weddings the bakery had done.

"I like that one," I said, looking back through the pictures. It featured a small two-tier cake with cupcakes below on a cupcake holder.

Dimitri smiled at me. "I'm fine with whatever you want, Roza."

Emilia grinned. "Seems like a smart man."

I laughed. "He very much is."

I turned to Katerina who was sitting on Dimitri's lap and was tasting some flavors with us. "Which flavor did you like, Katya?"

She pointed to where the peanut butter cake sample had been. "I have more?"

I started to tell her no since there was no more left, but Emilia caught my eye.

"I can get one more sample," she said softly.

I nodded with a smile. "Thank you. I appreciate it."

Emilia smiled and disappeared into the back before returning with another bite-size sample of the peanut butter cake. She handed it to Katerina.

"What do you say?" Dimitri prompted.

"Thank you!"

"You're welcome."

"What do you think, Liss?"

She studied the flavors in front of her. "There are three layers of cupcakes and two layers of the cake, right?"

I nodded.

"Go classic. Vanilla and chocolate for the two cake layers, or even vanilla and chocolate raspberry, and then pick two other flavors in addition to the peanut butter cup flavor for the cupcakes," she said. "I'm partial to the chocolate mint and the strawberry shortcake."

"Can we do that?" I asked, turning to Emilia.

"You're the bride," she said. "You can do whatever you want."

I smiled and looked at Dimitri. "Are you okay with vanilla and chocolate raspberry for the tiered cake?"

He nodded. "For the cupcakes, maybe the peanut butter cup, the strawberry shortcake, and the cookies and cream?"

I smiled again and leaned in, giving him a quick kiss. "Sounds perfect."

I apologize for the delay in the uploading this! My laptop broke earlier this week so I'm in the process of getting that fixed while also heading into the busiest month at my job (I work at a university). Hopefully will be able to get the next update up next week!