“Then there’s catering,” Taylor continued, scrolling through her notes with practiced efficiency. “They have this amazing package with passed hors d’oeuvres, plated dinner—we’re thinking filet mignon and lobster tail—open bar, champagne toast, wedding cake for two hundred guests. That’s twenty-eight thousand.”
I did the math quickly in my head. Sixty-three thousand already, and she was still talking.
“Sophie found the most incredible dress,” Taylor went on, her voice taking on a dreamy quality. “Vera Wang. It’s like something a princess would wear. Twelve thousand, but you should see her in it, Mama Amelia. She looks like an angel.”
Mama Amelia. Taylor had started calling me that five years ago, shortly after Sophie graduated high school. It had felt forced then. It still did.
Twelve thousand dollars for a dress she’d wear once. I thought of my own wedding dress in 1973—forty-five dollars from a department store, and I’d felt like a queen in it.