to this event.”

The reaction wasn’t what anyone expected.

Silence. Deafening, uncomfortable silence that seemed to stretch on forever.

Margaret’s confident smile dissolved like sugar in the rain.

Her lips started trembling as realization struck. Gerald looked around like he wanted to disappear into the floorboards.

Jake turned to Pastor Williams with a firm nod.

“Would you mind starting over? I want my wife to have the ceremony she deserves — without the comedy sideshow.”

That’s when something beautiful happened.

The guests rose to their feet.

Applause broke out, starting slow and building until it filled the church.

Mrs. Chen from my work actually shouted, “Hallelujah!”

Margaret twisted on her heel and stormed out, Gerald scuttling behind her like an abandoned prop. The church doors crashed shut with the sound of thunder.

Jake took my hand, and we exchanged vows alone at the altar, with everyone now focusing on where they should have been all along.

It was no longer just a ceremonial.

He promised to always be by my side.

Later that night, when we nestled up on the couch in our hotel suite, I asked the question that had been bothering me since the wedding.

“How did you know?” I asked. “And why didn’t you prevent this?”

He pulled me closer. “I’ll explain everything.”

“Remember how Mom asked me to fix her laptop a few days ago?

While I was busy, I accidentally saw the open browser tab. She’d been searching how to alter a wedding dress quickly. And had uploaded a photo of your dress.”

He let out a sigh.

“I realized then that she was up to something.”

“I knew that confronting her wouldn’t work, so I set out to gather evidence instead. I didn’t warn you because I wanted to catch her red-handed,” he said, stroking my hair. “She had to be exposed publicly, or she’d just find another way to make our marriage about her.”

His mother hasn’t said a word to us since.

Not a text, not a call, not even a passive-aggressive comment on social media.

The silence should feel strange, but instead, it feels peaceful.

I sleep easier now.

Trust is a strange thing: delicate as lace, as hard-won as those pearl buttons I’d dreamed about since I was 12.

But that day, in front of everyone who mattered to us, Jake proved something more than love.