Fffc Bingo Card - White wedding

[m_findlow]

Title: White wedding 
Fandom: Torchwood
Characters: Ianto, Rhiannon, Gwen, Jack
Author: m_findlow
Rating: PG
Length: 1,000 words
Content notes: none 
Author notes: Written for Bingo Card Prompt 27 - White at fffc
Summary: Planning a wedding is harder than it seems. 

Ianto found himself agonising over a decision that should have been simple or unimportant. It frustrated him that he was getting this worked up over something as trite as etched champagne glasses or cut crystal tumblers as wedding favours. This whole wedding business had, in his opinion, gotten totally out of hand. 

Gwen and Rhiannon had attempted to be helpful, but their help and all the good intentions in the world were driving him mental. They had an opinion on everything and had been hen pecking him for months, all under the guise of having been there done that. 

Gwen had donated a whole pile of old wedding magazines which Jack had dropped on his desk one morning as they were enjoying their first coffee of the day. Ianto had groaned out loud at the gesture, leaning forward on Jack's desk with his head buried in his arms. Unfortunately he was also bent over the pile of glossy magazines and could smell the shiny pages full of hope and mortgage busting must have accessories. 

The two of them - one sister slash sister-in-law to be, and the other, sister by mutual adoption - were endless in their little suggestions here, there and everywhere. 

‘Lilacs,’ Rhiannon said. ‘What about lilacs? They're not too feminine. Oh! What about an arch covered in lilacs! You two would look just adorable standing under that. Better than some smelly old church.’ 

‘Can I tell you, Ianto,’ Gwen began, ‘stay away from tablecloths. A nice set of napkins and placemats will be much better. You remember Rhys' mate Daf, don't you? You remember, he was part of our wedding party. The dark-haired one. He went to get up and nearly took half the table with him. Red wine spilt all over. Absolute nightmare. Nothing that people can get tangled up in, that's my advice. And none of those dodgy fold out chairs for the ceremony, either. Tell them you want real chairs.’ 

‘What d'you mean you're not doing invitations?’ his sister huffed. ‘This is a wedding, Ianto, not some night down the pub. It's got to be formal like, and proper. Doesn't matter if people chuck them out. You keep telling me not to do things half arsed. Charlene had lovely invites for hers. Bet I could get their phone number for you.’ 

‘We could get Banana Boat to arrange the music for the night. You don't want some DJ you don't know. I've heard horror stories, Ianto, absolute horror stories, where all they play is what they like and ignore the playlist you've spent hours compiling. And he'd be cheap. A case of lager and fifty quid, that's all we paid him. Even after he got tied up by that shape shifter and was bugger all help, getting pissed instead... But he'd be great, promise. Can't have you DJ'ing your own wedding now, can we?’

‘If you don't invite Auntie Irena, she's going to do her nut, Ianto. It'll be fine, trust me. She's not going to care if you're marrying a bloke. You don't have to have all the cousins, just her. You remember what a fuss she made of everyone who didn't go to Jaclyn's funeral, don't you? We'd never even bloody met her and we had to rock up or our names would have been mud.’ 

‘Set menus are a load of bollocks,’ Gwen lectured him. ‘If they say they'll only do alternating plates, tell them to shove it. It doesn't cost them any extra to add a third dish or change things up. Half of it's brought in frozen and pre-prepared, anyway. Be as picky as you like. If they want your business they'll do it.’ 

‘I just want to be rid of all of this,’ he'd moaned to Jack one night. ‘We can just elope and go down to city hall, sign some papers and it's done.’ 

Jack had squeezed him close and told him that if they were going to elope, they'd do it properly. Jack still wanted all the romance of getting married, even if it was just the celebrant and them, but it would still need to be, at a minimum, on a windswept beach at sunset with a wedding banquet for two and a blanket on the sand where they could make love under the stars. By the time Jack had finished making his list of mandatory demands, Ianto conceded that it was going to take almost as much work as a wedding with all the bells and whistles that the women in his life wanted. 

‘Tell me what you think,’ Ianto said, passing Jack his tablet. 

‘It's very, uh... white,’ Jack said, studying the collection of images Ianto had gathered of the various components. 

Ianto snatched back his tablet and began swiping through the images in order, showing them to Jack. ‘The cloth napkins and placemats are not white. The colour listed is called stardust, which is a very pale grey with a slight lustre, and the bows on the backs of all the chairs are tulle in brushed silver.’ He continued on, pointing out that the cutlery was sterling, the table settings were a mix of heather, sage and pine, with ivory candles, and that the place cards were not cards at all, but rather balsa wood cutouts of each person's name done in a cursive script font, tied with a sprig of lavender. Okay, yes, the seat coverings were white, and yes he'd kept things simple by only having one kind of floral arrangement done in white roses, but what else did Jack want? Pink flamingos? Yellow daffodils spilling from every spare vase? 

Jack leaned over in bed and kissed him. ‘If my Ianto wants a beautiful white wedding, and that's what will make him happy, then I think it's perfect.’

Ianto didn't necessarily want it, but if it kept everyone in his extended family happy, and he still got to marry the love of his life, then he supposed that was all that mattered.