What she really meant was that my opinion mattered less.
My mother, Catherine, listened quietly when I told her. She had always been a calm presence in my life, the kind of woman who could handle chaos without becoming it. She taught kindergarten for years before moving into support work at the district, and everyone in town adored her because she treated people like people.
“Do you want them there?” she asked.
“No,” I admitted. “But I don’t want to start a war.”
My mother reached across the table and squeezed my fingers. “Honey, you can’t avoid conflict by shrinking. You only delay it.”
I nodded, but my stomach still twisted.
Two weeks before the salon appointment, my mother called me with a softness in her voice that usually meant she was trying not to sound too excited.
“The package we discussed arrived,” she said. “It’s even more beautiful than we hoped.”
I paused, heart lifting. “Really?”
“Really,” she said. “And I think… I think it’s going to help you in more ways than one.”
I didn’t fully understand what she meant then. I just knew that for the first time in weeks, I could breathe.
Because somewhere underneath Margaret’s careful pressure and society expectations and whispered judgments, I still believed in something simple:
A wedding dress should make the bride feel like herself.
And I wasn’t about to let anyone—no matter how polished—take that from me.
Part 2
Maison Lavigne felt less like a bridal salon and more like a museum devoted to expensive fabric.
Crystal chandeliers hung from a ceiling that seemed absurdly high. Pale carpeting swallowed footsteps. Gowns stood in glass-fronted displays like relics. A tray of champagne flutes glittered under soft lighting, and every surface looked like it had never been touched by human hands.
Margaret arrived first, of course, because she always arrived first. She stood near the entrance like a queen receiving guests.
“You’re on time,” she said when I walked in with my mother.
“Hi, Margaret,” my mom said warmly, offering her hand.
Margaret accepted it with a polite squeeze and a smile that didn’t bend her eyes. “Catherine. How nice.”
Then Margaret’s friends arrived: Beatrice, whose pearls looked like they’d never met a clasp they didn’t like; Lillian, who spoke in long sentences that somehow said very little; and Joan, who kept glancing at my ring like she was verifying the diamond’s credentials.