Free The Windsor Knot by Sharyn McCrumb Page A

considerable interest.
    Sarah Ferguson was a full twenty-six when shemarried Prince Andrew. She had held a full-time job; she was definitely not a size five; and she’d had two past affairs that nobody troubled to deny. This was a far cry from the virginal teenage Princess of Wales; this was bordering on reality as Elizabeth knew it.
    Elizabeth studied the details of the Yorks’ wedding for inspiration. She liked the Duchess’s wedding gown; its low-cut circular bodice was very flattering; just the thing for the full-figured bride. Elizabeth hoped she could find one of a similar design.
    From a description of Sarah’s bridal bouquet, Elizabeth learned that a sprig of myrtle was traditionally included for brides.
(Whatever for?)
Consult the folklore book.
Myrtle, the symbol of Venus, goddess of love
. Can you get sprigs of myrtle in June in Georgia? Elizabeth wondered. That should be an exciting task for the florist. What else should she use in her bouquet? Thistles, of course, for Scotland, and maybe dogwood, the state flower of Virginia. Subject, of course, to whatever the florists could manage on such short notice.
It’s a good thing I didn’t have more time
, Elizabeth admitted to herself;
I could have been a florist’s nightmare
.
    The one custom about a royal wedding that Elizabeth did not admire and envy was the use of small children as the members of the wedding party. “There is no way,” she said, frowning at the charming photos of princes in sailor suits and winsome four-year-olds in Victorian frocks. “They’d probably start pelting each other with hymnbooks.”
    Not that the American custom of bridesmaids was much better. The bride was expected to choose her sister, her fiancé’s sister, and a few close friends or cousins as attendants, preferably the most presentable looking of her acquaintances, so as not toblight the wedding pictures. Ruefully, Elizabeth remembered her own summons to serve as bridesmaid for Cousin Eileen, whom she barely knew. She had hated the malarial yellow dress chosen for her.
I’m as bad off as Eileen was
, she thought.
I don’t have anybody to ask. How thoughtless of Cameron and me not to have sisters. We’re all right on brothers: Ian and Bill, for best man and usher, and presumably Charles and Geoffrey can usher. But that presupposes having four woman attendants. Not possible
.
    It was at this moment of desperation that Elizabeth remembered a childhood vow made with her then-best friend Jenny Ramsay, when during an orgy of sentiment watching
Pride and Prejudice
they had promised to be bridesmaids in each other’s wedding. Elizabeth’s family had moved to Virginia when she was in the tenth grade, so she and Jenny had not experienced the caste system of high school together. Gradually they lost touch. She hadn’t heard from Jenny in years. Elizabeth seemed to recall that she had gone to college at Agnes Scott—or was it Meredith? She remembered Jenny as a perky, fun-loving blonde whose idols in life were Donny Osmond and, in her
I Dream of Jeannie
days, Barbara Eden. Assuming that Jenny had not fulfilled her youthful dream of residing in a bottle in the home of an astronaut, she was probably still somewhere in the vicinity of Chandler Grove. (Burger King, thought Elizabeth uncharitably, remembering Jenny’s grade-point average in junior high.)
    When Elizabeth telephoned Aunt Amanda to ask about the whereabouts of Jenny Ramsay, she was surprised that her aunt recognized the name at once. She was even more surprised to learn that Jenny, far from sporting a paper hat and servingfast food, was part of the news team on the local television station. Elizabeth had written her a long chatty letter, summarizing a few years of achievements and adventures, and ended by telling her about the Queen’s garden party and asking Jenny to be her maid of honor. The reply arrived a few days later, on a cat notecard:
Love to! Call me when you get back to C. Grove!
    So that was settled.