The wedding of Samantha Starr and Daniel LeDeux did not take place until October. Both the bride and groom wanted the Bayou Rose mansion to be renovated enough to show off to company, although there still wasn’t much furniture, and years of work yet to do. That didn’t matter because the ceremony and reception would be held mostly outdoors in the rose garden. And, yes, thanks to a landscaper and much, much money, Bayou Rose once again had a rose garden to be proud of.
Daniel was working again as a doctor at the cancer center in Houma. He told everyone he had to return to medicine to pay for all the work on Bayou Rose.
What started out as a small family wedding ended up being the Wedding of the Year. With all of the Starr family and all of the LeDeuxs, along with some friends, the number of attendees exceeded a hundred.
Samantha wore an antique lace cocktail dress that probably cost as much as the fancy new range they’d bought for the remodeled kitchen. The stove had cost almost ten thousand dollars and did everything but sing Dixie.
Daniel and his ushers wore tuxedos. Black, even though white was preferred in the Southern weather.
Bruce Starr, dressed in a formal kilt (Who knew there was an informal kilt?) gave his daughter away. His ex-wife Colette, Samantha’s mother, wearing enough jewelry to sink a ship, came all the way from France with her latest boy toy, Armand.
Melanie Yutu . . . Aunt Mel . . . arrived a few days ago from Alaska and was playing the role of “mother” of the groom. She hadn’t decided about moving to Louisiana yet, but she was staying with Tante Lulu in her little bayou cottage for a few weeks. That would either convince her to stay or run for the hills . . . uh, glaciers. Unlike Colette, the only jewelry Aunt Mel wore was half of a silver heart on a chain. The other half had been buried with Claire Doucet.
Molly Gillotte, who had recently been released from the hospital following a successful bone marrow transplant, was flower girl, bumping out Emily for the honor. Molly and her three siblings were living in an expanded cabin on the Bayou Rose estate with their devoted father, Edgar. They were babysitting Samantha’s pets during the wedding. Five of the cabins had been renovated so far, all currently filled with families of children with cancer.
Aaron LeDeux was, of course, his brother’s best man. There was much speculation during the reception about the rumored secret night life of his twin. One person said that she heard he was dating a stripper. Another person said that she heard he was stripping himself. Another said he was making nightly copter flights back and forth to the oil rigs, taking the roughnecks to the New Orleans French Quarter. Someone even conjectured that he was studying to be a priest.
Daniel’s ushers were the rest of the LeDeux brothers: Luc, René, Remy, and John, and Angus Starr. Samantha’s bridal party included Tante Lulu, Charmaine, Rachel, Celine, and Valerie, along with Lily Beth who’d recently delivered a beautiful little Southern belle, Marie Fontenot.
Rashid LeDeux, one of Remy’s adopted sons, a music prodigy who was a student at Juilliard, played the wedding march on a piano which had been brought in for the occasion. The music for the reception came from The Swamp Rats, traditional Cajun classic, along with a few Barry Manilow ballads, in honor of Aunt Mel and Daniel’s mother. Especially appropriate, some said, was the bridal dance song, “It’s a Miracle.”
The couple planned to honeymoon in Alaska, of all places, but they would make their home in the Bayou Rose mansion. Aaron had moved permanently into the garconniére apartment, or as permanently as anything Aaron did.
Later, Tante Lulu was heard to speculate over where the thunderbolt would hit next. Would it be Aaron LeDeux, who was doing a shocking dirty dance with Luc’s oldest daughter? Well, not so shocking compared to what Tee-John was doing with his wife, Celine. That boy could dance!
Or maybe Simone LeDeux, who had flown in from Chicago for the wedding. A real Cajun beauty, that one was, but mysterious. With a rather haunted look in her dark eyes. There was a secret there that Tante Lulu vowed to uncover.
The party went on into the wee hours, but the bride and groom slipped off to spend their wedding night at a motel recommended by Charmaine Lanier and her blushing husband Rusty. Its best feature was the vibrating bed.
Later that night, Samantha told her new husband that she was gifting him the gold bullion.
“Isn’t that a rather extravagant wedding gift?”
“It will do more good renovating Bayou Rose than sitting in a bank vault. Plus, we should set up a foundation to run the cancer housing operation.”
Daniel rolled his eyes. He’d never intended his charitable giving to go beyond one cabin and one father. But he would do anything to please his wife.
His gift to her was much less valuable. A book. A 1,00l Sexual Fantasies. He figured they’d already tried out sixteen of them. He turned to one page and looked at her.
“Isn’t that a bit . . . dangerous?” she asked.
“Trust me, I’m a doctor,” he said with a wink.
“Hmmm. What do you say we try for Number Seventeen, too?”
“I thought you’d never ask.”
Samantha was wearing an old time nurse’s outfit, even though Daniel had never seen a nurse’s uniform that was so short her thong underwear was exposed. Not that Daniel was complaining. Daniel was dressed as a cowboy.
“Yee-haw!” and “Whatever you say, Doctor!” could be heard at a motel down the bayou that night, accompanied by much laughter. Who knew a horse could vibrate? But that was going to be the best part of their marriage, they promised each other. Love and laughter.