I jotted down a note for our audio-visual guy. A DJ would handle the reception, but he wouldn’t show up until after the ceremony was over, which meant the ceremony’s music fell on us. It killed me to think I’d be party to such an outlandish wedding march, but what was I gonna do?

“What does the groom think about the music?”

“About the ‘Macarena’? He doesn’t know. And I want it to stay that way. It’s going to be a huge surprise, and he’s going to love it. Trust me. When he sees me line dancing down the aisle, he’ll flip.” She squealed and clapped her hands. “Ahh! I’m so excited!”

I suddenly had an overwhelming desire to call Randi. She’d love the “Macarena” story. My freshman year at Berkeley, Randi had been my first roommate. After five minutes of hanging out, we’d discovered we were both from the East Coast, on the soccer team, and hospitality majors. Weird but totally convenient and fortuitous. Up until college, I’d never been great at making friends. Not for lack of caring—I was just busy. And incredibly passionate about soccer, which probably gave me a little bit of tunnel vision. Save my teammates, I rarely had much of a spare thought for anybody. If I was going to have a friend, I kind of needed her to fall into my lap. Randi had.

“Did you get that last part?”

I looked up to meet the bride-to-be’s expectant gaze. She’d asked me something. And I’d heard it. I knew I had. Something about dancing and bridesmaids and . . . “Yes!” It finally came to me. “I did get it. And we can absolutely widen the aisle so your bridesmaids and groomsmen can line dance in as well.”

“It’ll need to be at least twelve feet. Can the ballroom accommodate twelve feet?”

I wrote another note—twelve feet for line-dancing wedding processional. “It might cut the number of seats by a dozen or so, but based on your guest list, I don’t think that’s going to be a problem,” I said.

She leaned back into the sofa and grinned. “I can’t believe this is really happening.”

I glanced at my watch. “It’s about time to meet with the chef. Is anyone joining you for the sampling?”

She nodded. “My maid of honor and my mom.” She pulled out her phone. “Actually, they just pulled up. I’ll go out and meet them.”

Except for her terrible taste in music, Evie was a pretty cool bride. Though anything would seem cool after the Antiquing Club we’d had staying with us all week. Their first day, they’d inspected every piece of furniture on the property and declared anything manufactured after 1957 “absolute rubbish.”