How I Planned Your Wedding by Susan Wiggs Page A

researched and outlined (it’s not for nothing that she’s an incredibly talented writer, even about things with which she has no experience). This time she made the strategic move of referring to her sister, my favorite aunt, Lori.
    I was pretty much a goner.
    And here’s the thing: she had only the best of intentions. Even then I could see that she was simply drawing on her own life experiences…and, well, maybe allowing her love for my cousins to cloud heropinion the teensiest bit. My mom prides herself on being a world-class auntie. She often says it’s her favorite role in life—all the fun of being a mom and none of the responsibilities. Some aunts send their nieces a T-shirt or a coin purse at birthday time. My mom hires a personal stylist and takes them to Nordstrom. So I shouldn’t have been surprised that she instantly assumed I would embrace the idea of surrounding myself with the darling girls.
    Even more complicated was the fact that I dearly love my cousins, too. Cassidy is a precocious twelve-year-old who gives better relationship advice than women twice her age. Caitlin is a willowy seventeen-year-old, an award-winning ballerina with a quiet smile and doe eyes. They’re lovely, incredible girls who make me puff up like a tick with familial pride every time I think of them.
    Of course my mother had thought this out.
    She also knew, with a mother’s intuition, that I had already decided on Joelle, my eldest female cousin, to be my maid of honor. Joelle is a year younger than me, but she’s the closest thing I can imagine to a sister. We love each other, have a crazy Vulcan mind link and have managed to last a quarter of a century without killing each other despite being constantly compared to each other. Sure, she got the bigger boobs, while I ended up with the blonde ringlets. She laughs inappropriately when she’s nervous, while I make crude sex jokes. She’s a whiz in the chemistry lab, while I can write English lit papers in my sleep.
    But despite our superficial differences, we have a connection I can’t describe. She is me, and I am her, and when we’re old ladies together we will be the only two people in existence to know exactly what it was like growing up as we did in our tiny, zany, hilarious family.
    So, kudos to my mom for figuring that out before I told her. Joelle would be my maid of honor.
    And in my mom’s mind, the other female cousins logically followed suit.
    Here’s where my command to you should have come into play. I should have said to my mother, “You know, that’s a great idea and I’llhave to give it some thought once I decide to start choosing my wedding party. Thanks for the input.”
    Here’s what I actually said, “Um, no.”
    Whoopsie-daisy.
    I went on to dig myself an even deeper hole, reminding my mom of all the wonderful women in my life. And it’s true: as a veteran of two intense sports teams and an amazingly fun college, I have a giant list of gals who merited the title of bridesmaid. I mean, I’d spent so much time with some of these ladies that our, ahem, cycles had synced up. If that’s not friendship, I don’t know what is.
    More importantly, while I love my younger cousins to death, I thought they might not understand the importance of being a bridesmaid. On my wedding day, while I was chugging an unhealthy amount of champagne and cussing like a sailor, I didn’t want my teenage cousins to be the ones in charge of cutting me off. When I threw off my robe and got fully naked to step into my wedding dress, I was pretty sure the twelve-year-old wouldn’t want to be the one to hold my boobs in place while her sister buttoned my corset. And I had a feeling it might technically be breaking the law to ask a minor to hold my skirt up while I took a nervous pee in the ladies’ room during the reception.
    But again, all this could have been said later, once the newness of the engagement had worn off a little. And once my mom had a chance to retract her