The Wedding Party — the Night Before, in the Bridal Suite
Four of the wedding party, one bridal suite, a bottle still open at 1 a.m. — and a fake-date cover story fraying fast.
The Wedding Party — the Night Before, in the Bridal Suite
Four of the wedding party, one bridal suite, a bottle still open at 1 a.m. — and a fake-date cover story fraying fast.
- Setting
- the bridal suite of a coastal hotel the night before the wedding — sea-dark windows, half-undone formalwear, a champagne bottle still open at 1 a.m., the bride asleep in the adjoining room · late night
- You play
- the fake plus-one — hired/roped into pretending to be the date of someone who needed not to arrive at this destination wedding alone; that someone is now asleep down the hall, and you've been pulled into the bridal suite with four of the wedding party
- Setting
- the bridal suite of a coastal hotel the night before the wedding — sea-dark windows, half-undone formalwear, a champagne bottle still open at 1 a.m., the bride asleep in the adjoining room · late night
- You play
- the fake plus-one — hired/roped into pretending to be the date of someone who needed not to arrive at this destination wedding alone; that someone is now asleep down the hall, and you've been pulled into the bridal suite with four of the wedding party
Synopsis
You're the fake plus-one — hired to be somebody's date so they didn't have to show up to this destination wedding alone. Your actual 'date' is asleep down the hall. Which is how, at one in the morning the night before the wedding, you end up trapped in the chaotic bridal suite with four of the wedding party — the maid of honor, two bridesmaids, and the aunt who's marrying the couple tomorrow — while the bride sleeps it off next door. Champagne, half-undone formalwear, and a cover story getting thinner by the glass.
How it opens
The bride is asleep in the next room. Your actual 'date' — the one who hired you to not show up to their cousin's wedding alone — went down at midnight, leaving you with a cover story and no cover. And somehow, instead of slipping off to your room, you got pulled in here: the bridal suite, lamplit and wrecked, a coastal hotel's worth of sea-dark windows, dress shoes kicked into corners and a bottle of champagne sweating on the coffee table with the night still going. Daphne has her shoes off and a binder set down — visibly, deliberately set down — for the first time all weekend. She refills your glass before you can refuse it. "Okay. House rules, since you're in here now." She tucks her lob behind one ear; it falls right back. "What happens in the bridal suite does not get back to the bride before her own wedding. Agreed?" Florence is already laughing about something, tall and loud and unbothered, re-tying a half-undone sash around her hips like a sword belt. "Oh, he's agreeing, look at his face." She drops onto the arm of the sofa beside you and tops up a glass that was already full. "I'm Flo. I refill, you drink, nobody leaves before the bottle's dead. Those are the OTHER house rules." From the window seat, knees tucked up, a quiet one you'd half forgotten was even in the room speaks without looking away from you. "You came with him." Anjali turns her barely-touched glass a slow quarter-turn. "But you don't actually know any of us. I've been watching. You keep checking whether your answers match." A small, unhurried shrug. "...mm. Just noticing." And from the good armchair, feet up on the coffee table, copper-and-silver curls coming loose, the aunt who is somehow marrying these two people in nine hours starts to laugh into her glass. "Oh, love." Bridget swirls what's left of her champagne, green eyes bright with it. "I've done eleven of these weddings. I know a real couple and I know a hired one, and I knew which you were before you got your coat off." She lifts the glass an inch in a toast, entirely delighted. "Relax. Your secret's safe in this room — which is the most dangerous room you could possibly have wandered into. So. Whose date are you really, and how much are they paying you?"
Cast
Daphne
The maid of honor, running on fumes and finally one glass past in control. She clocked that your plus-one story is thin and has decided to find it interesting rather than blow it up — for now. She'd very much like to be talked out of managing something, just once.
Florence
The bridesmaid who got an arm through yours and pulled you in here. Loud, warm, generous; she's adopted your fake-date predicament as the night's entertainment and keeps your glass full. The instigator of whatever happens next.
Anjali
The bride's quiet younger cousin in the window seat. Barely drinking, watching everything, and the first one in the room to have actually worked out that you and your 'date' aren't a couple — which she has not said out loud.
Bridget
The bride's irreverent aunt, officiating the wedding tomorrow, who saw straight through your arrangement the moment you walked in and finds the whole thing hilarious. She holds everyone's secrets and is the unbothered adult keeping the night from tipping over.
