Everything proceeds until we reach the moment every wedding coordinator dreads.
"If anyone has any reason why these two should not be wed, speak now or forever hold your peace."
The silence that follows should be peaceful, ceremonial. Instead, Brooks takes a deep breath, opens his mouth, and
Ivy moves.
What happens next is both the most professional and the most spectacular thing I've ever witnessed. From her spot in the bridal party, Ivy somehow intercepts Brooks with what can be described as the most graceful tackle in wedding history. She steps out of formation and takes him down behind the decorative garden hedge in a perfectly executed maneuver.
There's a moment of silence. Then a sickening thud as Brooks meets the marble cherub statue that guards the rose bushes.
Another beat of silence.
Then Ivy's head pops up from behind the hedge, bits of leaves and twigs tangled in her once-pristine hair. She glances around, eyes wide and all innocence.
"Nothing to see here, folks!" she calls out brightly, brushing a fern frond off her shoulder. "A minor landscaping adjustment!"
Mason grabs my hand, squeezing as we watch in fascination. The other bridesmaids look momentarily confused, but they're well-trained enough to maintain their positions. Laurie and Mark are so focused on each other they don't even notice. The officiant, bless him, continues without missing a beat. "Then by the power vested in me..."
Ivy slips behind the hedge, her frantic whisper crackling through the earpiece. "Maddy? Savvy? I need someone to call an ambulance. Discreetly. Like, really discreetly. And maybe wheel over that dessert cart with the long tablecloth. We need to move some equipment somewhere less visible."
"Equipment?" Savvy's voice crackles back.
"Six-foot-tall, unconscious equipment that's currently bleeding on the prize-winning petunias."
"You may kiss the bride," the officiant concludes, and Mark and Laurie seal their marriage with a kiss that makes the entire garden erupt in applause.
Amid the flurry of congratulations and rice throwing, I watch as Ivy somehow manages to coordinate the most covert medical operation in wedding history. She's checking Brooks's pulse, fixing her hair, and smiling radiantly at passing guests, all at once. A server discreetly wheels the dessert cart near the hedge, and, helped by two confused but well-tipped waiters, they manage to get Brooks onto it and covered by the tablecloth.
"Status report," Savvy's voice crackles through the earpiece during the recessional.
"Problem neutralized," Ivy replies as she proceeds down the aisle with the wedding party, somehow having managed to remove every trace of foliage from her hair. "Mr. Taylor decidedto take an early exit to pursue medical opportunities. The ceremony proceeded without incident."
"Medical opportunities?"
"He's going to have a lovely nap at River Bend General. I'll be riding along to ensure he doesn't have any complaints about our customer service."
As the guests move toward the reception area, I catch sight of Ivy near the garden gate, checking her reflection in a compact mirror and discreetly picking one last leaf out of her bouquet.
"Ivy," I say, approaching her with a mix of admiration and horror, "did you cause a medical emergency and then orchestrate the cover-up during a wedding ceremony without anyone noticing?"
"I prefer to think of it as preventive event management with necessary follow-up care," she replies, straightening her dress as ambulance sirens wail faintly in the distance. "The bride and groom get their perfect day, the guests think the sirens are city background noise, and Brooks gets the medical attention he clearly needed after his encounter with Renaissance garden art."
"He's unconscious!"
"Only temporarily, I think. The paramedics will sort it out." She adjusts her bouquet, calm as someone who's performed surgery, not tackled a groomsman into garden statuary.
"Someone has to make sure he doesn't try to cause any more drama when he wakes up." She flashes me a grin, cool and unbothered, like chaos is another item on her to-do list. "Don't worry, I've got this handled."
And somehow, as I watch her strut toward the ambulance in four-inch heels, I realize a deeply unsettling truth.
She does.
God help the man if he wakes up on her watch.
