Winter at Pretty Beach by Polly Babbington (inspirational books txt) 📕

thing online and all the guests were in the Orangery ready and waiting for Katie to walk down the twinkly pathway.

‘Rightio, if you’re ready to go, everything is good to go on the other end,’ Sallie whispered to Katie. ‘You sure you’re okay?’

‘Yes, I’m fine.’ Katie said, standing there in the silk dress and cape seemingly oblivious to the cold and snow.

‘Okay, so you’ll just walk all the way down the path, just follow the lanterns over the pebbles - the video will be running and then as we discussed, the live stream will be broadcasting the whole thing. One last check that you’re definitely happy with that, Katie?’ Sallie gently held onto Katie’s elbow as they stood under the umbrella behind the gates to the Orangery, ‘Oh and you do realise you can back out now if you want to.’

‘Yes, I mean no, absolutely. I’m so excited.’ Katie whispered back.

Sallie texted through for the music to start and thirty seconds later it began to play.

‘Well, we’re ready when you are,’ Sallie said, nodding in encouragement while still holding the umbrella over Katie and the dress as the snow flurries continued to fall all around them.

Katie looked at her and smiled, stepped out from under the umbrella and slowly began to walk along the path. Gentle flurries of snowflakes caught in the breeze coming up from the sea and landed on her veil, but she seemed immune to the icy snow and cold air as she floated along the lantern lined pathway to the huge arched door of the Orangery.

She stepped through the door and continued along the centre of the Orangery, the floor lined with white confetti, the ends of the chairs fixed with huge bouquets of fir, white flowers and gold ribbon.

The Christmas tree, decked from top to toe in thousands of white lights stood resplendent and glittering at the end behind Sam, dressed in a dark grey suit and standing nervously at the top of the aisle. He looked back at Katie as she slowly made her way up to meet him.

Sallie stepped inside shivering once Katie was safely at the top with Sam, and a spontaneous round of applause erupted from their family and friends, most of whom were looking on with tears in their eyes.

Sallie quietly closed the huge old door of the Orangery and looked down at the magical scene as the celebrant began the process to declare the couple husband and wife.

Sallie stood at the back of the Orangery, keeping an eye on everything as Katie and Sam stood facing each other just in front of the glittering tree.

Just as her and Lucian had planned weeks before, the night had drawn in not long after Katie had arrived, the canopy of lights Sallie had taken inspiration from the palace had come on above them all and the tree looked resplendent in the centre.

Everything had gone well so far and the first few pictures that had gone online had already got thousands of likes and comments. It was just what they had wanted - fabulous, organic publicity for both Lucian’s podcast and the Orangery and all completely under their control. Sallie leant on the Orangery door and wondered if they’d made the right decision by deciding not to let any press in or do a deal with any of them for an exclusive spread. They’d decided that with their combined reach on various different platforms it would generate enough interest and so they’d decided to keep it all tightly in-house - and by the looks of what was happening on social media, so far they were right. The picture of the Christmas tree alone had over a thousand comments, sharing and tagging, and the livestream was being watched by more people than they had ever imagined.

Sallie pulled down the sleeve of her black velvet dress. As she stood there looking over the whole scene and Ben just off to the right in charge of the lights, she ran her hand over her stomach - she’d still not done a pregnancy test and nothing had happened. Once this was over, the evening was done and they’d cleared up, she would do a test tomorrow to find out.

She put her phone back in her pocket and slowly walked through to the fernery where the guests would mingle while all the chairs from the ceremony were moved, and the tables brought in to get ready for the meal to be served. She walked over to the bar where Ollie was standing in the Pretty Beach Weddings navy-blue butcher’s apron and shirt.

‘How’s it all going in there?’ He asked quietly as Sallie approached.

‘All good so far - you heard about the car?’

‘Yes, Phia told me, what a nightmare! It snowed as she was walking in though didn’t it?’

‘Yep, couldn’t have gone any better on that front - perfect little snowflakes fell all the way along as she walked down the path and she didn’t seem to even notice the cold.’ Sallie said leaning on the bar. ‘It looks great in here, Ollie.’ She said looking around the tropical plants in the dimmed lights, the second of the Christmas trees in the entrance covered in lights and the vintage fruit crate shelves behind groaning with gin.

A couple of slow cookers full of mulled wine simmered hidden away on the inside left of the bar filling the whole of the fernery with the scent of warm spices. Sallie had strung slices of dried orange on rustic string through a garland down the centre of a table to the right, lined up rows of heavy hobnail glasses in front of a vintage silver terrine and strewn around star anise, little bundles of cinnamon sticks, clove-studded oranges and herbs. The result was a heady smell better than any candle.

‘Let me have another taste of this mulled wine,’ Sallie said to Ollie and dipped the ladle in, pouring it into one of the glasses and took a sip. ‘Very nice - never been