“Kennedy! Our hair appointment is in ten minutes across town, we have to go now! It is just going to have to be good enough.”

Her older sister, Caley, walked out of the reception hall intent on getting into her car and leaving without Kennedy if she didn’t follow suit, she knew it. Looking around at the centerpieces and table linens, the chair covers and candle arrangements, she felt her anxiety creep up. Nothing was quite what it was supposed to be. Glancing at her watch, she was shocked to find that it was later than she had even dared to think. It was going to have to be good enough. As she darted from the room after Caley, she cursed under her breath at how she had even got roped into being in charge of, well, everything for this damn wedding anyway. Their youngest sister, Lynx, had never wanted a big, fancy wedding, and everyone in their family had respected that. However, very quickly into the wedding planning process DIY had become DI-We, which inn many ways had then devolved into DI-Kennedy and Caley.

The wedding of a youngest child is bound to be a pivotal moment in any family. But in a family as complex and tragic as the Ashford’s, there was bound to be drama and complexities aplenty. But Lynx had been very careful to avoid the land mines that littered their familial network. She had agreed to let Mom invite her group of frenemies, had added relatives to the list from both sides of the family she had never heard of before, done the whole shebang dress shopping fiasco and even gritted her teeth through the bridal shower she swore she would never have. Her older sisters had watched in awe as she achieved feats of conciliation with the family matriarchs they could have only dreamed of. She had not picked any of the battles about guest lists, food, venues or logistics they had dug their heels in on one way or another, setting the tone for an uncharacteristically smooth time in their collective lives. As her sister’s rushed across town to their final wedding day preparations, they knew that the other shoe was about to drop and they were very much looking forward to finally seeing fireworks.

A few hours later, Kennedy and Caley scrambled through the front door of their mother’s house, hair done but everything else left to do and less than an hour to go before they had to be at the venue for the start of the ceremony. Caley ran to the bedroom at the back of the house while Kennedy dashed to the bedroom to the side of the house past the front staircase. As she passed by the stairs, she glimpsed out of the corner of her eye and stopped in her tracks. Lynx stood at the top of the staircase, in the billowy satin dress picked out at the bridal shop she swore she would never set foot in months ago with every female member of their family in tow. It fit her perfectly, like Cinderella’s glass slipper in dress form. Her chestnut hair, which was usually thrown back in a ponytail set for convenience rather than style, had been perfectly curled in a way that looked as effortless as it did stunning. Although Kennedy had never seen her younger sister in such a state of elegance, she had also never seen her look quite so beautifully herself.