They got engaged one summer night in June, up at Ben’s family lake house.
The first few months, everything seemed great. But then, on an afternoon when Caroline was out shopping discount dresses with her mom, it all slipped out. “You’re too young to know what you want.” Most of all though, it was about marrying into Ben’s family.
They were still in high school. This was no shotgun wedding, so why couldn’t they just wait?
As the days moved a little closer to the wedding, the tension between the families worsened. Caroline was stuck between two mothers doing all they could to sabotage the wedding, and things were coming to a head. They were arguing over who’d be paying for what, as her future mother-in-law naturally figured Caroline’s parents wouldn’t be able to afford the wedding that she wanted to throw, so she refused to split the costs.
Then there was the biggest fight of all, over a dinner between the two families. Caroline’s mother refused to come to the wedding, over the insistence that they have the ceremony in the baptist church, where the rest of the Bancrofts have been married. The parents talked about having two wedding receptions.
The fight ended with the same question as the beginning, why couldn’t they put it off? But all these spiraling events led to one thing, Caroline pushing up their wedding date by six months, and an ultimatum that they either have the wedding then or drive to Las Vegas.
Everything was so rushed, there was no longer time to bicker over the small things, leaving no time to think about the future.
