The Wedding Project 💍

'Perfect' - The Bride (@EverythingIsNothing)

Anna Gilmour smiled, holding back giggles while Mrs. Gilmour tugged at her long black hair.

Her mother clutched a curling iron between her thin fingers. Neither her thick foundation nor her sour expression could conceal the eclipse of a beam pulling at her face.

Such an expression was a rarity from Beatrice Gilmour.

Namely, Anna knew the callus expressions and raised eyebrows her mother wore at home. Though, her soft features could be determined as sweet when she was exhausted after work. Something like honey. Anna had heard her father slur the phrase at dinner one night, one of the only times she could recall them all together.

"Dangsin," Beatrice said, grabbing a plait of her hair a little harder than Anna would have liked. "Sit up straight. I don't want to burn you."

Anna loved the sound of her mother's Korean endearment on her tongue. Sweetheart. Anna believed wholeheartedly in the reasoning behind the affectionate byname, but she believed more in what the name meant to her, to her childhood.

Emerging from her slouch, Anna's grin grew gradually. Some things never change, at least. Anna thought, rolling her thumb against the thin metal tucked beneath her sleeve.

With a spark of inspiration, Anna drifted her gaze upward, making sure to keep her head narrowly fixed ahead, chin angled downward ever so slightly. "Eomma," Anna addressed her in her mother's native tongue.

Beatrice paused, brown eyes piercing into her from the vanity mirror ahead. "Yes?"

"Susan... Did you see her this morning? She should be in here by now. Do you think—" Anna wound her fingers around the trim of her long-sleeved blouse, the thin, almost see-through material, crumpling easily, "—she somehow left?"

"Impossible," Beatrice tsked while she flipped the curling iron clutched in her palms. "She's your friend. We're all here in celebration, dangsin. Don't worry, be happy. I'm happy."

"I am happy, really excited." Anna dropped her hands to her lap, grinning down at them. "How does Mrs. Anna Wallace sound?"

A bang echoed from behind her, and it took everything in Anna to not turn at the commotion. Hurried apologies and curses flew into the room, maybe from the bathroom or perhaps the hotel room's threshold—or both. Anna could tell naught except for the raucous laughter and hollers of immense positivity.

Izzy. That was the only name that came to Anna's mind. I'd know her laugh anywhere. The simple idea was enough to make her collapse with excitement.

"At least she didn't cozy up with Callum's weird friend." The voice was distinctly Bridget's, light and tender to the very core.

Could blue-eyed people be more tender-hearted than people without? Callum has blue eyes. Anna nodded to herself, mentally making a list of people she knew who had blue eyes, Bridget and Callum included.

"Dip off!" Distinguishing her green-eyed friend was easy. Sera's voice had a hearty ring to it, the infectious kind one couldn't help but fall in love with.

"Are you all ready?" Anna questioned, trying to get a glimpse of her friends from the reflection in the vanity mirror. She was met with gentle hands at the side of her head to focus her gaze straight.

From the mirror's reflection, the white-posted king size bed sat directly behind, fluffy pink comforter in disarray on top. In the mirror's right, the white-framed window casted a clear stream of sunlight across the room, bathing the closest corner in radiant light and making the pastel pinks seem brighter than they were the night before. One of the girls sat atop a chaise allocated in the bright corner, a straightening iron in hand.