Toss the Bride by Jennifer Manske Fenske

Standing in the Great Hall with that tiny-headed dinosaur towering over the entire show, I’m not sure how anyone can escape where they’re going.
    Katie Anna agrees to go for a walk with me. She is a pretty blonde with a thin nose and the peppy gait of a gym fanatic. Even though it’s her wedding day, she looks sad and confused. I know immediately where to take her. We go to the Okefenokee Swamp. On the boardwalk, I point to the frozen thrushes and plastic water. Her blond hair, recently done up in a cascade of curls and twirly French knots, has become a bit unhinged. I touch one sprung curl and tuck it back into the rest. As the pink lights of morning come up on the swamp, Katie Anna lets me put one arm around her shoulder as she cries.
    She tells me that her fiancé is really, well, she says apologetically, there’s no other word for it, an ass. He works all day and then expects her to put on a black dress and entertain clients. He likes wrestling and drinks beer with every meal. She envisions a parade of expense-account dinners and low-brow weekend sports that never ends, yet she can’t think of life going forward unless she marries him in six hours.
    Katie Anna and I stand in the swamp for about a week of up and down lights, cooing birdcalls, and mating deep-voiced frogs. She cries a little bit, and I explain the wonders of the swamp I had never seen before last week, even though it’s in my home state. I tell her about the trees knitting together and the sorry chance the swamp has to make it out alive. She stops crying and lifts her head just slightly, all the while working her two-carat ring off her left hand. When I get to the part about fire helping the swamp get back to what it’s supposed to be, Katie Anna has the beginnings of a smile that no cypress tree, small-headed dinosaur, or ass-faced fiancé can take away.
    And so we leave the swamp at sundown, but not before Katie Anna takes that ring and drops it into the water. Of course, it bounces right off the Plexiglas and rolls over to rest beside a dusty white heron, and her father will retrieve it later because he is mad and wants to cash it in to make his daughter pay for her treachery.
    But for now, the only one wearing white is the heron, and as we leave the swamp, Katie Anna turns to blow her a kiss. I would have put the ring on the dead bird’s beak, but I can tell that Katie Anna is the type of person who respects the DO NOT TOUCH signs posted here and there. My cell phone rings, and I know it is Maurice begging me to save the day. I know I did not.
    Later, Maurice and I will make the calls that pull the plug on something as big as a fancy-schmancy wedding and reception. It’s no easy feat. I could go on and on about all of the details: food, swan handlers, antique china rental, jewelry security. In the end, it really doesn’t matter. The caterers throw out thousands of dollars of food, the heirloom tiara is returned to the safe, the bridal programs are discarded. Everyone has been paid, so they have a night off. I wander around the Great Hall, watching the men load up the white chairs and tables. Iris arrives with the wedding cake and then turns around to take it back to her studio. I’m busy on the phone canceling the honeymoon reservations, so all I can do is give Iris a weary look. “Come over later,” she whispers. “We’ll eat cake.”
    Maurice is still in his first outfit of the day. I wonder what he will do with his evening. He looks really down.
    â€œOne of our potential clients—Lila Stall—was going to come by tonight and check this place out for her wedding next year,” Maurice says with a weary note to his voice. He leans against a palm tree the florist has not yet removed.
    â€œOh, who’s she marrying?” I sit on a folding chair. It strikes me that this is the first time I have ever sat down in a wedding rental chair. Usually, I’m working. It’s