A March Bride (A Year of Weddings 1 #4)(32)
Today, all the world would judge her beauty and her fashion sense. Was she ready? She quelled a blip of nerves by calling up a memory from her garden wedding at Christ Church. Then she remembered Gracie and Ethan, Granny and Grandpa, along with parishioners, family, and friends who were gathering on the grounds right now to watch her wedding. Again.
Then she remembered the man waiting for her at the abbey.
He was so worth it all.
In the palace drive, just beyond the doors, a white carriage with red and gold wheels stood waiting. Four footmen dressed in breeches and buckle shoes helped her ascend the carriage steps and settle in beside her father. The moment the carriage left the palace with security officers riding beside the coach on dark, curried mounts, the abbey bells began to ring through the crisp air, pealing a wedding sound through all of Brighton.
The noise of the crowd rose to a fevered pitch.
Susanna waved and smiled, a peace beyond understanding rising in her heart. This was her destiny. What God created her to do and be. And at the end of this life journey with Nathaniel, she’d meet another amazing King face-to-face: Jesus.
Daddy leaned toward her, laughing, shouting, “I think they like you, Suz.”
“And I’m starting to love them.”
Once they arrived at Abbey Road, she stepped out of the coach with Daddy’s aid, pausing for the photographers. She’d given permission to each approved media outlet to send one photographer to walk with her, at a distance, as she made her way down a carpeted path to the abbey’s entrance. It was tradition for the bride to walk from the road to the church on a red velvet runner.
Besides, this was Brighton’s day as much as hers and Nathaniel’s. Their day, their first wedding, would always be a private, special memory.
Avery met Susanna at the beginning of the walk and helped her lower her veil. When Daddy offered his arm, Avery picked up Susanna’s long train and they commenced the slow processional. As they made their way toward the ancient church down the path lined with hornbeam trees and potted hyacinth and hydrangea, the people cheered.
We love you, Susanna.
The walk stopped at the abbey’s ivy-covered walls where the archbishop met them, looking regal in his intricately embroidered robes. The Royal Brighton Orchestra began to play, filling the abbey with the notes of their own unique wedding song.
“Ready?” Daddy said, holding on to Susanna as much as she was holding on to him.
“Yes, I am. Very much.”
Together they followed the archbishop down the long, red-carpeted nave.
Susanna’s heart fluttered at the first sight of Nathaniel waiting for her on the altar steps, amazing-looking in his own dark blue naval uniform replete with ribbons and medals, his silky hair clipped and trimmed, shining in the soft light.
When she arrived before him, he bowed ever so slightly and reached for her hand. “You are stunning.”
With all the warm confidence of love, she held his hand and followed him up the steps, never looking back, never feeling so comfortable and safe as she did right now. In the garden of her husband’s heart.
1. Susanna has given up everything to marry King Nathaniel. But when he tells her that she has to give up her American citizenship, it pushes her over the edge. Some of my missionary friends feel very proud and possessive of the American heritage and citizenship. Giving it up would be letting go of their last hold on home. How do you feel about this? Would you hesitate to give up your citizenship—your last piece of “you”?
2. The reverend reminds Susanna that her citizenship is really in heaven. Not Brighton or America. This revelation is something I try to meditate on. I’m of the kingdom of our Lord and His Christ. What about you? Has this reality impacted you? How does it change the way you live?
3. Nathaniel has a romantic wound. The public rejection of Lady Adel. It causes him to hesitate with Susanna. But he faces his fear when he sets up the surprise wedding. Is there a wound in your past that causes you to be afraid of something or someone? Even the Lord?
4. Love and marriage require a lot of giving, a lot of commitment. Susanna surrendered everything for love. Love is worth our all. Don’t we see this in Jesus’s birth, death, and resurrection? How He became His own creation because of love. How can we be more like Him? He’s worth giving up everything for love.
5. The Bible tells us that love covers a multitude of sin. It also enables us to trust and give, allows us not to cling to our own ways. We see this in the blending of low-country Georgia culture and European royal culture at the wedding reception. How can growing confident in His love for you enable you to love others more?
An Excerpt from A February Bride
If wedding dresses could talk, Allie Andrews was fairly certain hers would have a sailor’s mouth.
Four months later—to the day, actually, after she’d shucked out of her wedding dress in the backseat of the meant-to-be honeymoon car and gunned it down the highway with nothing but a bottled Yoo-hoo and her favorite faded jeans for company—the dress hung on the inside of her closet door, the once small tear in the seam now gaping and taunting her. Every time she opened the closet, that rip reminded her how she’d severed one of the few relationships in her life actually worth keeping.
Which was precisely why she had to give it away in the first place.
Allie grabbed her favorite purple sweater, the one she often wore to work at her antiques store since the air conditioner in the quirky old building refused to shut off year round, and tugged it over her head. She could use all the cozy comfort she could get today at lunch with Hannah. She’d put it off long enough. After ditching her best friend’s brother at the altar, she’d fully expected Hannah to hold a grudge. Hannah’s unconditional love expressed through multiple phone calls and text messages had been almost worse than the cold shoulder—harder to face than a much deserved grudge—which was probably why she’d been avoiding this meeting.