“Skye.” My father exhales, and I picture him pinching his sinuses. “Just give them this. Please.”

My dad is a man of few words, but I know what he means. Your grandparents lost their daughter. Just let them spend as much money as they want giving their granddaughter the wedding their daughter would’ve given her.

I sigh, defeated, picking at the cuticle of my thumb.

“Another option is pushing the wedding back until next summer,” my dad continues. “That gives you—and your grandparents—more time to lock down venues. And…”

“And what, Dad?”

Telepathically, I dare him to say it: And more time to get to know Burke before you commit to spending the rest of your life with him.

“Nothing, Skye,” he says quietly.

“Dad, you know Burke and I just want to get married. That’s what matters to us. We don’t want to wait another eighteen months—neither of us is interested in having a long, stressful engagement. Just—just tell Pops and Gammy that Brant Point sounds great. I’ll call and thank them.”

“Okay.” I can tell my father has more on his mind, but whatever it is isn’t for me to know. He’s never been good at being emotionally open—that was always Mom’s forte. She used to say that getting my dad to talk about his emotions was like prying open a cold clam.

After I hang up with my dad, I edit another three chapters of the new Loving Louise before falling into the black hole of online wedding-dress shopping. I cut myself some slack—I’m ahead of schedule on edits for Jan’s book, and I need to find a dress. According to Lexy, most bridal stores have at least a six-month turnaround time for dresses, and I’m already going to have to rush-order whatever I end up choosing.

But I have no idea what I want. I think about my friends. Lexy is definitely the most fashionable. Andie’s look is too anorexic Brooklyn hipster for me these days, and Isabel’s has always been too J.McLaughlin.

I go to Lexy’s Instagram profile and scroll down to find pictures of her wedding from the previous summer. I don’t have to scroll far; @lexyblanehill has posted a wedding photo for every month she’s been married.

Still not over it. Happy eight months, my love, reads her caption from a post on March 23.

A month before that: Seven months with the love of my life. I still pinch myself.

Another month before that: Six months with @matthill4. Life is a dream.

You get the gist.

Lexy’s wedding dress is stunning—a strapless Mira Zwillinger sheath with delicate organza flowers that hugs her body in all the right places. I frown. I don’t have the arms to pull off strapless.

I check Isabel’s profile next. Iz’s Instagram etiquette is the opposite of Lexy’s, as in she barely uses social media. Her wedding was three summers ago—she was my first close friend to get married—but she posts so rarely that I only have to scroll through a few pictures to find one from her wedding day in 2016. Unlike @lexyblanehill, who updated her Instagram handle to reflect her married name upon exiting the church, @izwaterman has not yet incorporated Maguire, her married name, into her online persona. I’m a tad jealous of Isabel’s blasé indifference toward social media; I wish I didn’t have the impulse to check Instagram all the livelong day, a habit that makes Burke roll his eyes. At forty-six, Burke’s generation missed the roller-coaster ride of coming of age online.

The dress Isabel Waterman wore to become Isabel Waterman Maguire is a poufy collection of tulle and lace that would look ridiculous on my five-foot-eight frame. But on petite Isabel it’s perfect; with her sandy-blond hair swept back into a stylish bun, she looks like a confection.

I sigh, hopelessly resorting back to Pinterest, which sucks me in for another hour. Burke is still at WeWork by the time I need to leave for dinner with my bridesmaids, which Lexy has organized at Charlie Bird.

The four of them are there when I arrive—Andie, Lexy, Isabel, and then Kendall, my closest friend from college. My sister-in-law, Brooke, is also in the bridal party, but she and my brother live in San Francisco. They met junior year at Berkeley and have been together ever since. Brooke grew up in Marin County, and her whole family lives in Northern California. They don’t come back East much anymore.

Iz and Kendall are deep in conversation at the table while Lexy tries to coerce Andie into taking a selfie, no doubt for her Instagram stories. I watch Andie feign annoyance, but I know she secretly loves to pose, the way she pouts her pink lips to further sharpen her cheekbones.

“Eeeeee!” Isabel squeals, and stands when she sees me. “The bride is here!”

“Hi, ladies!” I make my way around the table to give each of them a hug.

Andie looks vaguely uncomfortable; it’s the first time we four childhood friends have all been together since my engagement, and I can tell it bothers her that she’s the only one of us without a ring. Kendall isn’t married or engaged either, but she isn’t in our group of four, so it’s different.

Someone has ordered a bottle of champagne, and once it arrives at the table, we get down to business.

“The first thing I think we should discuss is the hashtag,” Lexy says, flipping her dark hair, which she’s recently cut to her shoulders. “Do you have one, S?”

I can feel Andie rolling her eyes.

“Umm––”

“Because I was thinking #burkeisskyehigh. Clever, right?”

“Sure.”

“Great. Now for your bachelorette, we’re a little crunched on time since there are only five months till the wedding, but I think that’s still enough to plan something cool. I was thinking the Azores. Maybe Tulum.” Lexy looks at me. Her eyelashes are almost comically long––she’s religious about her biweekly extensions––but she pulls it off.

“Lex, I don’t know.” I take a sip of champagne. “I was maybe thinking of forgoing the whole bachelorette thing.”

“What!” Lexy looks incredulous. “You can’t do that. The bachelorette is the best. Every bride needs one.”

For hers, Lexy took twenty girls to a rental house on Harbour Island in the Bahamas, where she also chartered a full-service catamaran. In total the three-day weekend cost over two thousand dollars a head, and even though the money wasn’t an issue for me personally, I knew several others—particularly Andie—were hit hard by the price tag.

“A Nantucket wedding in September is already an expensive ask.” I make a point not to look at Andie. “I really don’t want everyone spending too much, especially on short notice.”

Lexy sighs. “Skye, fine, we can discuss this later. Next on the agenda is the band. Do you have one?”

“Hey, Mussolini,” Isabel interjects. Because Lexy’s Italian, Mussolini is what we call her when she’s being particularly overbearing. “You do realize as a bridesmaid your job is not to coordinate Skye’s entire wedding? Besides, Andie is the maid of honor and she’s supposed to plan the bachelorette.”

“I’m just trying to be helpful, Isabel.” Lexy scowls. “Do you know how far in advance people reserve the band these days? Her wedding is only five months aw—”

“Guys!” I raise both hands. “Stop. I have a wedding planner and we’re in the process of booking the band. And, Lex, you’re right that the timeline is tight. I get it.”

“I think it’s romantic,” Isabel hums. “Like the olden days when couples fell in love and got married quickly because the man was going off to war.”

“Right, but there is no war at the moment,” Andie murmurs, her voice thick with sarcasm.

“That’s not entirely true,” Kendall points out, and everyone turns toward her in surprise. A global history PhD candidate at Columbia, Kendall is by far the most intellectual of my five bridesmaids, and I watch the others nod in silence as Kendall explains that the United States is currently involved in wars in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia, Syria, Libya, and Yemen.

The waitress comes by, and Lexy orders another bottle of champagne. I watch Kendall twist a lock of strawberry-blond hair around her pointer finger and worry that she thinks my oldest friends are superbasic. I shoot her an appreciative grin. I’ve always valued her sharp intellect—the two of us can talk about politics and books together to a degree that I can’t with my other friends. At the same time, I worry that my friends from home think Kendall is a pretentious know-it-all. I worry that Andie probably wishes she were anywhere else but here, celebrating an engagement she doesn’t support. Maybe I should’ve made Lexy maid of honor. At least she clearly cares. Also, maybe I worry about my friendship dynamics too much.

I slip my phone out of my bag underneath the table and text Burke: Bridesmaid drama [[rolling-eye emoji]].

He texts back a minute later: Haha. Isn’t that inevitable? Don’t worry, whatever the drama is I’m sure they’re all coming from places of love. Then: And remember, all that matters is you and me.

My heart swells with love for Burke, for his ability to always know exactly what to say to make me feel better.