You Can Go First--Spanna
“So how exactly is this going to work?” Hanna asked, flipping through a bridal magazine. Spencer glanced up at her before turning back to her laptop.
“How is what going to work?” she asked. Hanna huffed. She’d been talking about this for twenty minutes, and Spencer had mostly grunted and ‘mm-hmm-ed’ her. She should have known she wasn’t really listening.
“Walking down the aisle at the wedding. Obviously usually the groom stands at the front and the bride—”
“I know how weddings work, babe,” Spencer interrupted. Just like Hanna should have known Spencer was tuning her out, Spencer should have known Hanna was talking about their upcoming wedding. And by upcoming, she meant “date still to be determined”. She’d only proposed to Hanna a month ago. In that month, however, Hanna had been planning her heart out.
“Okay, so how is our wedding going to work? I know I want to walk down the aisle, but you probably want to walk down the aisle too. So what do we do?” she asked. Spencer raised an eyebrow.
“One of us walks and then the other one does?” she suggested, feeling like it was a fairly obvious solution. Hanna considered.
“Who goes first?” she asked. Spencer shrugged.
“You can go first,” she offered. More consideration on Hanna’s part.
“You don’t mind?” Hanna asked. Spencer moved her laptop to the side, giving her fiancé her full attention.
“Hanna, I would be perfectly fine with walking into the courthouse right now. I want to marry you. How that happens isn’t important to me. Yes, if we’re having a wedding I’d like to have my dad walk me down the aisle. But the order we do it in really isn’t important to me. So if it makes a difference to you, then you can decide. Honestly, I’m leaving a lot of the details of this wedding up to you because otherwise you’ll probably just change whatever I plan,” she said. Hanna pretended to look scandalized.
“I would not! Am I making you feel excluded from wedding planning? I thought you weren’t interested, but if you’re staying out because you think I won’t listen—”
“Hanna! Calm down. I was joking. You’ve been planning your wedding since you were a little girl. I want you to feel like everything is perfect. Like I said, the marriage is the part that’s important to me, not the wedding. If I feel strongly about something, I’ll let you know. I promise,” she said. Hanna relaxed.
“Okay. I know I can be a little bit headstrong about this…” Hanna admitted. Spencer rolled her eyes.
“Hanna, have you ever known me to be quiet about something if I have an opinion on it?” she asked. Hanna laughed.
“Point taken. By the way, have you heard from Melissa?” Hanna asked. Spencer groaned.
“Ugh, no. I feel like she’s ignoring me,” she said. She’d wanted to wear her mother’s wedding dress for the wedding, but when she’d called Veronica, she’d been informed that Melissa had the dress. Apparently Veronica had given it to her back when Melissa was engaged to Wren. Of course, the wedding had never occurred, but Melissa had never returned the dress.
“Do you want me to call her? As you’ve pointed out, I can be scary when it comes to wedding planning,” Hanna said. Spencer shook her head.
“No, it’s okay. I’ll try calling her again tomorrow. And she can’t ignore me forever. Besides, it’s not the end of the world if I can’t wear the dress,” she said. Hanna had a feeling Spencer cared more than she was letting on, but she didn’t say anything.
“What do you think about September?” Hanna asked. Spencer frowned, lost by Hanna’s sudden change in subject.
“For what?” she asked. Hanna rolled her eyes exaggeratedly.
“For the wedding. If we wanted to do outdoors, it would be a good time. Not too hot, not too cold. Plus we could do it over Labor Day Weekend to make it easier for everyone to be in town,” she explained. Spencer nodded.
“I’m good with September. But do you really want an outdoor wedding? What if it rains?” she asked.
“I thought about that. But remember how beautiful Byron and Ella’s wedding was?” Hanna said wistfully. Spencer raised an eyebrow.
“I wasn’t invited, remember?” she pointed out. Hanna blushed. It’d been her own fault Spencer hadn’t been invited to that wedding. Aria had been trying to protect Hanna, since Spencer had been dating Caleb, and she was afraid it would be weird if they’d all been there.
“Well it was beautiful. Our wedding will be bigger than that, of course, but I still think outdoor weddings are beautiful. Mom offered the Radley up for the reception, but I said there was no way in hell we were having our wedding associated with that place,” Hanna said.
“Thanks,” Spencer said softly. Hanna gave a quick nod, not dwelling on the topic. The Radley had never held good memories for Spencer—for obvious reasons—but it’d been even worse when Spencer discovered that she’d actually been born there. Since then, she’d refused to stop foot in the place.
“What about my parents’ backyard? It’s bigger than Ella and Byron’s and we could probably get Alison to agree to let us use her backyard as well,” Spencer suggested. Hanna jotted something down in her wedding planning notebook.
“That’s a really good idea,” Hanna said approvingly. The two had decided to hold their wedding in Rosewood, despite the fact that they lived in Philadelphia. Both of their families lived in Rosewood, as did Emily, Aria, and Alison.
“Is September too soon? That’s only seven months away. Is that too short of an engagement?” Hanna asked, her subject jumping giving Spencer whiplash.
“No, it’s not too soon. Long engagements are overrated,” Spencer said. Hanna nodded in agreement and made another note.
“Will you call your parents and confirm that we can use the backyard, and I’ll call Alison?” Hanna asked. Spencer nodded.
“Yeah, sure,” she said. A curious look crossed Hanna’s face.
“Do you want me to take your name?” she asked. Spencer furrowed her eyebrows.
“I mean, you can if you want, but I don’t expect you too,” she said, wondering if Hanna was going to ask her to change her last name.
“We could hyphenate,” Hanna suggested shyly. Spencer nodded. She leaned in and gently kissed her fiancé.
“Nothing would make me happier than being Spencer Hastings-Marin.”