For the last eight months, planning our wedding had consumed nearly every spare minute of my life—venue visits, floral samples, cake tastings, invitation designs—it became my full-time passion project. I didn’t mind. It was the fairytale I had dreamed of since childhood, playing dress-up in my mom’s old gowns and pretending to walk down the aisle.
Jared and I met two years ago at a mutual friend’s housewarming party. I was in the kitchen, wrestling a stubborn wine bottle when he appeared—tall, kind-eyed, and charming. “Need a hand?” he asked with a grin. I joked, “Only if you promise not to judge me for failing at adulting.” He opened it with ease and poured us both a glass. “To barely-functioning adulthood,” he toasted, and we laughed.
