When Worlds Collide
Chapter 14
By: Bella
Before Benji and Tristen knew it, it was the day before their wedding. It felt like time had passed so quickly as they scrambled around to make everything happen. Of course, it was nice to have Kate there constantly to help with the arrangements. Tristen's friend Jill helped as well, and Benji's family came a week before the wedding. All of the plans and preparations were leading up to the next day's events, and Benji and Tristen couldn't have been happier. Although they were looking forward to it, they were ready for it all to be over with so that they could move on and REALLY start life as a married couple now.
The day before their wedding they had a rehearsal at the church to go over the ceremony with the wedding party. Benji's groomsmen were Joel, his brother Josh, Billy and Paul. Tristen's bridesmaids were Kate, Jill, Benji's sister Sarah, and Paul's wife Sandy. Tristen's very much younger aunt (her father's half-sister) who was 8 years old, named Christine, was the flower girl. Benji's little cousin who was 5, named Matthew, was the ring bearer. Some other family was there as well, including parents and grandparents.
The rehearsal went smoothly and a dinner followed it at Tristen's favorite restaurant in town. At the dinner, Benji and Tristen had little gifts for everyone to thank them for their help and support. After dinner, most people followed them back to Tristen's parents' house to hang out and visit with each other and have dessert. Tristen and her mother had spent all day in the kitchen making lots of desserts. They had cherry pie, chocolate crumb cake, cheesecake, caramel apple strudel, and vanilla ice cream for everyone to choose from. They hadn't, however, thought about the fact that everyone needed to fit into their tuxedos and dresses the next day. This was up to everyone else to worry about. In the meantime, they had fun stuffing their faces and pushing their worries aside until the next morning.
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"Son of a bitch," Tristen whined as she slapped her alarm clock to make the loud and annoying noise that had woken her up go away. She had pressed the "snooze" button, and about 10 minutes later the familiar noise woke her up once again, just as she was falling back asleep.
"Shut the hell up, you stupid mother fucker," Tristen complained, turning it off and sitting up in her bed. Cursing at her alarm clock was a morning ritual of hers. She looked around her almost empty room. It was finally happening. Today was her wedding day, and from this day on her life would be changed forever. Sure, she was already legally married to Benji, but on this day it became public and it was the last time that she would wake up in her room by herself. From now on, she would be waking up in their house (or tour bus), next to her husband. It was all so exciting, and she wasn't nervous at all. She kept remembering that she was already married, and now it would just mean than she could spend all of the time that she wanted with her husband and really be a full-time wife.
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In a room not far from hers, Benji woke up and realized the thing that Tristen realized. It was the last time he would wake up under the same roof as his wife without her next to him. He looked across the large room and smiled as he saw two temporary beds set up where his brothers slept. Upon Tristen's parents' insistence, Benji, Joel, Josh, Sarah, and their mother stayed at their house. The brothers shared what for a time had been Benji's room, and Sarah and their mother shared a room across the hall. Benji and Tristen had decided that not seeing each other before their wedding was ridiculous and decided to break the silly tradition. The only time when Tristen didn't want Benji to see her before the wedding was once she was getting ready for the event.
He finally got himself out of bed and went downstairs to see if Tristen was up yet. He found her sitting on the couch looking tired and flipping through channels on tv with the remote while sipping coffee. She didn't notice him until his head was in her lap.
"Hello my bride," Benji said to her with a smile, with his head resting comfortably in her lap and the rest of his body spread across the long couch.
"Well hello there," she said, smiling down at him. "Did you enjoy your last night alone?"
"Oh yes, of course. I kept thinking about how from now on I'll have to deal with your snoring, sheet stealing, and sleep talking every night. It'll be a bitch, but hopefully you'll be worth it," he joked as she playfully smacked him on the head. They watched tv together for about a half an hour until the rest of the house had woken up.
Once everyone was awake, they sat down together and had yogurt, fresh fruit, and toast. Then it was time for Benji and Tristen to part ways as Tristen left to go to the salon to get ready for the wedding. She packed up the few essentials that she had left in her room and put them into a gym bag. She then took one last look at her room, turned off the lights, and shut the door. It wasn't her room anymore. She walked down to the other end of the long hall and went into her parents' room. She went into their closet and got her dress out. She had been hiding it in there, because she knew that Benji would snoop around her room every chance that he got looking for her dress. She hadn't been allowing him to see it. But she knew that he didn't have the nerve to snoop around her parents' room, so she figured that her dress was safe in their closet.
With a gym bag in one hand and her wedding dress in the other, she walked out of her house with her mother and Sarah and they headed to the salon. Soon after they arrived, Kate, Jill, and Sandy met them there. Tristen's mother was treating the bridal party and herself to a day at the salon and spa to get ready for the wedding. The wedding wasn't until the early evening, so they had plenty of time to be pampered. They all got massages and sat in a hot tub for a while and chatted while drinking sparkling apple cider. Then, they got facials, manicures, and pedicures. Just for her husband, she decided to have her finger and toe nails painted black. Then it was time to get her hair done, and she had been planning to change her hair this day for months. Benji would be surprised, and Tristen was ready for a change. She decided to cut her long, wavy auburn hair to a messy, wavy, shorter style to her shoulders. Then she had some black streaks added. For the wedding, she decided to leave it down and curl it, but pull the very front up. Her bridesmaids all decided updo's, but no one else did anything as drastic as Tristen to their hair as far as the cut or coloring. After hair, the only thing left was makeup. They all had a blast getting makeovers, and after they thanked everyone there they left for the church, where they would all get dressed in a back room.
They were slightly ahead of schedule when they arrived at the church. But Tristen ended up devastated once they got into the small back room and Tristen took her dress out of the protective dress bag that it was in.
"Oh my God!" Tristen said in horror, immediately bursting into tears. "It's ruined!"
Everyone rushed to her and looked at the dress. Sure enough, there was a huge oil stain on the bottom of her dress. Although it had a plastic covering, as well as had been put into a canvas dress bag, when Tristen had laid it down in the trunk of her mothers' car, she hadn't realized that there was oil on the carpet and it had soaked through the dress bag and gotten onto the area near the bottom of the dress that the plastic wrap had come up and exposed.
Tristen was horrified. She thought that her perfect day had been ruined. Everything had been going well. She was happy with her new look, she was feeling relaxed and excited, and then suddenly she finds that her dress is stained. Tristen's mother felt horrible for not realizing that she had oil spots in the dark carpeting of her trunk and racked her brain for something to do. The dress was ruined, the wedding would be very late if they all ran down the nearest bridal shop so that Tristen could find a new dress, and her daughter was sitting in a chair crying her eyes out over what had been her "dream dress."
"I'll find you a dress. I know it won't be a perfect as this one," she said, pointing to the one that Tristen still held in her hand. "But I promise that it will be special."
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About 20 minutes later, Tristen's mother returned to the church and rushed into the room with a dress bag in hand. By then, people were arriving and it was nearly time to begin. Tristen had calmed down a bit and stopped crying, but her eyes were still a little red and Sandy was helping to fix the mascara that had been running down her cheeks. Her mother walked over to her and unzipped the dress bag.
"I know that this isn't quite what you pictured yourself walking down the isle in, but it's a wedding dress and it will fit," Tristen's mom said, laying it in her lap. Tristen looked down at the dress and then back up at her mother with tears once again welling up in her eyes.
"Your wedding dress …" Tristen said in surprise. "I didn't even know you still had it. I've never even seen it before, except in pictures."
"I had it safely packed away in a box in my closet," her mother explained. "I had been ashamed of it for so long. But it was a part of my life, and I couldn't get rid of it. It's inexpensive, simple, and old, but it's lucky and it was made with love. Your great grandmother made this dress for me, because she was afraid that I'd end up wearing jeans and a t-shirt to own my wedding. I had absolutely no sense of fashion back then. But it was the most special thing she had ever worn at the time, and the nicest thing that anyone had ever done for me. Later on, I became embarrassed that I wasn't able to afford a designer gown, but today I remembered something that I forgot a long time ago. It doesn't matter what you get married in. All that matters is that you marry the person that you love with the support of the people that you care most about."
"Thank you, mummy," Tristen said as a tear slid down her cheek. "I feel honored to wear this dress."
As Tristen put the dress on, everyone noticed her panties and laughed. She was wearing Made panties. She knew that Benji would get a kick out of it. She slipped the dress on, and sure enough it fit her perfectly. She felt even more beautiful and more loved in her mothers' dress than she ever felt in her old dress.
"And of course, you must wear my pearls," Tristen's mother said, fastening a string of pearls around Tristen's neck. It had been a 25th anniversary present from Tristen's father to Tristen's mother. It was her mother's favorite piece of jewelry, and Tristen's mother had told Tristen when she got them that she wanted her to wear them at her wedding. Finally, they were ready to get the show on the road.
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"I now pronounce you husband and wife," said the minister. "You may kiss the bride."
Benji and Tristen had a short but sweet kiss, followed by an applause. Both grinning ear to ear, they walked down the isle holding hands.
"You look beautiful. I love it," Benji whispered to her, referring to her new look.
"And you don't look so bad yourself," Tristen whispered back. "Thank you for not wearing make-up."
Benji laughed. He had decided to forego the make-up just for her. She had never been a big fan of his running eyeliner, and made sure that she complimented him every time that she saw him without it. She wasn't sure whether he would wear it to their wedding or not, but she was secretly hoping that he wouldn't.
"Was it better than the first time?" Benji asked, as he opened the door to the car that they would be riding to the reception in.
"How could it have been better? I love marrying you every time," Tristen replied with a laugh, carefully getting into the car.