Wedding Crasher - a short short flash fiction wedding story about a bride, bridegroom and a lover by Rob Hopcott

To Angela, the bride didn't look beautiful. The pew seats were hard and the rural village church was more Gothic horror than quaint.

The bride, wearing far too many layers of make-up, still looked plain and ordinary with a long trailing off-white dress designed to hide the fattest of legs.

Her relatives in their top of the range cars and designer clothes were otherwise only distinguished by their double chins, the girth of their wives and their bored smiles.

The organist stopped playing the traditional entrance music half way through as the bride, over eagerly, arrived too soon in front of the congregation.

Luke, the bridegroom, was trying to make the best of it and smiled at his bride-to-be encouragingly. It was one of his best smiles. It lit up the whole church. His white teeth flashed and his eyes crinkled endearingly. It was his "I'm going to get you smile" almost always followed, Angela well knew, by a sweet lingering kiss. Angela's lips, out of habit, even half formed a kiss of reply.

But today it was not to be Angela's lips that would receive his kiss. It would not be around Angela's waist that his arms would circle. Tonight, in his marital bed, it was not to be Angela to whom he would make love.

Yet Angela knew with absolute certainty that, to Luke, his bride-to-be was a concept not a woman. She was a good family and a secure future not a lover. Angela knew what he liked for she had satisfied Luke's male desires for years from her small rented home above the local High Street.

Last night, Luke even came back to her after his stag night, saying he would always love her no matter what and would be back soon. Unlike the others, the money he left she put in a special account knowing some day it would put the child she was certain they'd together have through schooling.

This narrow hipped woman with fat legs could only ever be second best to the ample and varied charms Angela had bestowed on Luke for so many years.

Charms that Angela would hold vividly in her mind when the pastor intoned the words:

"If there is anyone here who knows a just cause why they should not lawfully be joined in marriage, I implore you to speak now, or forever hold your peace."

In front of the whole congregation, Angela would stand up and tell them exactly why ...

The End

For more wedding stories read about Amanda's abseiling wedding experience or Always Loving but Never Lovers.

For more sudden fiction, flash fiction, micro fiction, smoke-long fiction, postcard fiction or very short fiction, check out Rob's central site for short short fiction stories for quality free online reading.

Copyright Rob Hopcott 2007. All characters in this and other wedding stories, flash fictions or very short stories on this site are fictitious and no reference is intended to any person living or otherwise.