Matthew and Angel

August 2030

Right back when they were kids growing up together in the children's home, Angel and Meadow had decided that they would be each other's bridesmaids.

 Angel had never once imagined that she would be the first to marry, though. She'd just assumed that it would be Meadow, and everything that had happened in their lives since seemed to confirm the assumption. Until now, with Meadow and Jamie postponing their wedding until their new baby was old enough to participate, and Angel and Matthew a couple of weeks away from theirs.

They had also imagined big, grand weddings, with no concept of how they would pay for them. Angel was very aware of the price of such an event now. Matthew's parents were paying most of the bill, with some contributions from Angel's sister Tosha. Matthew's family weren't short of money, but Angel still worried about how much it all cost. It had led to a few minor disputes, like the one when Matthew learned that Angel was hiring her dress.

"We can afford a dress," said Matthew

"That's not the point. Why spend money when you don't have to, especially with how much its already cost. You're hiring your suit."

"That's different. Isn't the wedding dress supposed to be special? Like, you treasure it and put it away for your daughter to wear or something?"

"That's not fair on the daughter. I mean, fashions change, people have different tastes. What if the daughter doesn't like the dress? Either she gets married in a dress she doesn't like, or she picks her own dress and feels guilty for disappointing her mother."

Matthew stopped trying to change her mind.

In the week before the wedding, Angel took some time to catch up with her friends

She had lost touch with Ivy Pitts when Ivy had graduated a couple of years before her. They'd been able to reconnect when Angel discovered that Ivy was also living here in Richmond.

Marie Centowski had moved back to Brooklyn Heights to be near her family after graduation, but she'd come to Richmond for the wedding.

It turned out that Marie wasn't happy back in her hometown. 

"It's so loud and busy and there's nowhere to have a garden or even just get away from everyone. I miss Bluewater Village."

"So go back."

"To Bluewater Village? Where would I work? I don't think there's a lot of call for journalists there."

"Ok, then, how about here - in Richmond? There's a local newspaper and its an easy commute to Redwood City for the bigger publishers."

"It's what we did," said Ivy. "We were in the city for a few months and hated it, so we moved out here."

"I don't know, my family's there... "

"You have family here, too," Meadow reminded her. She and Angel had worked out that Marie was distantly related to Jamie.

Marie said she'd think about it.

While Angel had easily settled on her part of the wedding party, it had turned out to be a bit more difficult for Matthew.  

He had hoped his friend Lewis would be his best man, but Lewis was busy with his business internship and couldn't get back from Brooklyn Heights. Matthew suspected this wasn't the complete truth, as Lewis's partner Amaya was best friends with Sam. They were even sharing an apartment, now that Sam had also moved to Brooklyn Heights. Probably, going to Matthew's wedding was just too awkward.

Matthew had no idea what to do. He realised that he had literally no other friends, or at least none close enough to ask. In the past his friends had been his classmates in high school, or the other members of his soccer team. But he hadn't played in a team in years, and spending almost all his free time during college with Sophie meant he'd lost touch with the friends he'd had in the past and not made any new ones since. Even after graduation, he'd just spent his time with Angel and Sophie.

Angel must have mentioned the problem to Meadow, and Matthew was more than a little surprised when Jamie offered to fill in. While they had little in common they enjoyed each other's company, but Matthew wouldn't really call them friends. 

Matthew wondered if part of Jamie's willingness had come from the fact that he and Meadow had also started their family very young. He understood what it was like to have responsibilities that set him apart from most of his college peers.

Matthew decided to do what he could to nurture the friendship. But even that meant different things to Jamie and Matthew. Jamie was a talker, Matthew was a do-er. Jamie liked to spend hours just chatting and getting to know people, while Matthew grew friendships by doing things together. With that in mind, he offered to teach Jamie to surf.

You couldn't normally surf on the lake, but every summer someone set up a wave machine at Magnolia Beach. It wasn't like being in the ocean, but it was good enough and it was where Matthew had learned to surf as a teenager. 

"I think this was a bad idea.... "

Matthew wondered if maybe just talking might be the better way to do this after all.

While Matthew and Jamie were off bonding, Angel's friends threw her a bachelorette party... although probably the less said about it, the better...

-----

This is not how Matthew would have expected his wedding day to start...

They had gone for a traditional ceremony, but even so there were some breaks from convention.

As well as being her second bridesmaid, Angel's sister Tosha walked her down the aisle, with Matthew's daughter Sophie walking ahead of them.

Wedding album...

Angel with Tosha and her partner Vivian

Matthew with his mother and step-father

----

Whew!  I always go overboard with the pictures for weddings... It was quite a job to put together, with sims visiting from three other linked hoods (made possible by Master Controller, with the ability to immediately invite unlimited 'foreign' visitors, instead of having to wait for them to show up the next day)

Thanks to my time-skip, the timeline is a bit confusing here... Meadow was pregnant with baby #2 in Matthew and Angel's previous post, but the wedding happened after the baby was born. Baby will make its debut on the blog in a different post soon.

It's hard to sort out the order of these intersecting stories in a way that makes sense sometimes! I'll be glad when I've gone around every household once and then I only have to write about what happened in the most recent play session.