Free Four Weddings and a Fiasco: The Wedding Caper by Patricia McLinn Page A

the Schmidts’ tiny shop to pick up the rings.
    She knew he’d succeeded, because Myrna, as her pretend maid of honor, had shown her the groom’s ring and given K.D. the engagement ring to put on. Presumably Ken had the bride’s wedding band.
    The music started.
    Nothing like Your Cheating Heart or Love Stinks. She almost smiled at the thought. This was familiar, so fam— Oh, good heavens. The Wedding March. The honest to goodness, never thought for a moment that she’d be the bride it announced, Wedding March.
    Ken started forward. She followed. Her knees shook. She was going to fall over on her face. This video was going to have an entire laugh reel of outtakes.
    “One step at a time,” Ken murmured beside her, placing his free hand over hers as it rested on his arm.
    One step. And focus straight ahead.
    To where Eric stood. Looking back at her.
    With such a strange expression. Solemn, with something else mixed in. She looked at him as another step brought them closer.
    Several something elses mixed in. And she didn’t recognize any of them.
    Yet somehow taken together, the look added stability to her knees.
    One more step. And focus straight ahead. Another. And another.
    They were there.
    Ken removed his hand from hers. As if that hand had weighed hers down, it rose, met Eric’s and clasped. Hands together, they turned to face Tyce.
    “Dearly beloved —”
    “Hold it!” Ella called out. “Nobody move. I have to take some stills now.”
    ****
    T his wedding was even stranger than Eric had expected.
    He’d figured it would raise uncomfortable memories of marrying Hilary. Oddly, it hadn’t.
    Maybe that was because this was not a “fashionable” church packed with people the bride insisted
had
to be there. In fairness, he hadn’t protested much. As long as his family and friends were there, he’d figured it didn’t matter who else was there. Only in retrospect did he realize how little of his time that day had been spent with family and friends.
    No worries about that today, even if those friends were playing multiple roles. He fought a grin at that thought.
    It was like getting married trapped inside an old movie where the film kept breaking. They’d get through one section of the pared-down ceremony, and Ella would stop everybody, shift to her still camera, skittering around them while they made only the minutest adjustments.
    Then Ella would shift back to her video camera, and off they’d go again. But only for a short spell.
    When he’d first spotted K.D. about to start down the aisle on Ken’s arm, he’d thought she was going to pass out. That’s how pale she was. Then he thought he might pass out. That’s how beautiful she was.
    Tall and regal in a flow of silky white that had to be complicated to look that simple and that good. Her hair in soft, feathery wisps under a breath of a veil.
    It was as if she had come out of a dream, yet there was no mistaking her reality.
    Or the reality of his reaction to her.
    She’d looked at him, and he couldn’t have looked away from her for anything on this earth.
    When she’d put her hand in his, they’d looked into each other’s eyes, then turned to face the minister, and it had been as if—
    No. No. Not, the minister. Tyce. And none of this was real.
    He’d kept reminding himself of that.
    While his self-reminders had grown thin, he’d seen K.D. gain confidence as the process ground on. They’d repeated vows in fragments, exchanged rings for multiple angles, and Tyce had intoned already familiar words multiple times. They were almost done.
    But not quite.
    By the ease of the woman beside him, he recognized one fact for sure.
    He knew what was coming next. And K.D. didn’t.
    ****
    “K iss is next. Gotta have a shot of you-may-now-kiss-your-bride. Not yet. If I can get Tyce’s shoulder without any of his face . . . .” Ella picked up the video camera, adjusted two settings, then commanded, “Okay, go ahead.”
    K.D. didn’t move. Neither did