Elin Hilderbrand - Beautiful Day

“And I’m never getting married again.”

“Me either,” Margot said.

Griff stood up straight and adjusted his visor. He looked at Margot, and she became transfixed by his blue-and-green kaleidoscope eyes. It was a genetic anomaly, and Margot wondered if heterochromia iridum came with any benefits. Did he see things differently? Did it lend him a sixth sense that enabled him to guess people’s favorite lyrics? Did it allow him to be generous of spirit even when he’d been wronged?

“I want you to call me,” Griff said. “Tonight, after you get home and settled, when you’re climbing into bed, as late as you want. Okay? I’ll answer, I promise.”

Margot nodded. “I’ll tell you the stupid stuff,” she said.

“All of it,” he said.

“Okay,” Margot agreed.

As Griff walked away, he spun around. “Thanks for the pennies,” he said. He squinted off the side of the boat. “You know, I can’t wait to come back here.”

Margot followed his gaze to the coastline of the island, the place where she had wandered the beach as a soulful teenager, where she had partied with her brothers and sneaked in the back doors of bars, where she had met Drum Sr., where she had discovered she was pregnant, where her mother’s spirit shone like the sun on every surface. It was the island where Margot wanted to rest her weary bones when this exquisite, tremendous, and endlessly confounding life was through. It was home.

“Me either,” Margot said.

Happily Ever After

There is no doubt in my mind that, whether you’ve followed my advice or ignored it, you had a glorious, memorable wedding. A wedding is one thing, sweet Jenna, and a marriage is quite another. I know there are writers and psychologists and talk-show hosts and “experts” out there who claim they can give you the secret to a long, happy marriage. I assure you, they know nothing. Your father has seen every possible permutation of marriage, separation, and divorce, and he will be the first to tell you-and here I wholeheartedly agree-that half of all marriages will end and half will endure and there is no telling which is which. I am grateful for all the blessings I have been given, especially you and Margot and Nicholas and Kevin, my strong, bright, beautiful children. But my family begins and ends with your father, Douglas Carmichael, who has sustained me for thirty-five years with his devotion and infinite kindness. He did two things for me every single day of our marriage: he made me laugh, and he was my friend.

How lucky, how very lucky, I have been.

The New York Times

Carmichael-Graham

Jennifer Bailey Carmichael, daughter of Douglas Carmichael of Silvermine, CT, and the late Elizabeth Bailey Carmichael, married Stuart James Graham, son of James and Ann Graham of Durham, NC, yesterday on Nantucket Island, Massachusetts. The Reverend Harvey Marlowe officiated at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church.

Ms. Carmichael, 29, is the lead teacher at Little Minds Preschool in Manhattan. She is a graduate of the College of William and Mary.

The bride’s father is the managing partner at Garrett, Parker, and Spence, a family law practice in Manhattan.

The groom, 30, is a food and beverage analyst for Morgan Stanley. He is a graduate of Vanderbilt University, where he graduated summa cum laude. He received an M.B.A. from Columbia.

The groom’s father is a vice president at GlaxoSmithKline in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina, and the groom’s mother has served as a state senator in North Carolina for twenty-four years.

Ryan Graham (best man): Wow, the wedding announcement states all the facts, but it actually tells you nothing.

Nick Carmichael (brother of the bride): Normally, I break hearts like it’s my cool second job. But this weekend, I had a girl swiped right out from under me, which has never happened before. It took a minute for me to realize that she hadn’t belonged to me in the first place. It felt like she belonged to me because I have known her for so long-longer than Scott Walker, by the way-but only by a couple of decades. Finn had always been Jenna’s little friend, but then, this weekend, she became someone else. Had I fallen in love with her? Man, I don’t know if I would go that far, though I felt something crazy and unfamiliar. But then I’ve heard weddings can do that. They can bring out the romantic in anyone.

H. W. Graham (brother of the groom): Her flight was at three o’clock and mine was at quarter to four so we decided to go to the airport together. We had gotten a pretty good glow on at the brunch, and since we had time at the airport, we sat at the bar and did a couple of tequila shots. She had been saying the whole weekend that she knew guys like me and that I didn’t have to worry, there were no strings attached. Once she got on her plane for Myrtle Beach, I would never see or hear from her again. So it took a little convincing for me to get her number. We can text, I said. I’ll hit you on Facebook, stuff like that. Plus, I go to Pawleys all the time to golf (this wasn’t strictly true, though I had been there once), so I can come see you. I can come to your restaurant. She said, It’s a free country. Then her plane was called and I kissed her good-bye and I watched her copper hair disappear through the gate at security, and I’m embarrassed to admit what I did next. I got on my computer and MapQuested the distance between Raleigh and Murrells Inlet. One hundred and eighty-seven miles, three hours and thirty-four minutes. Piece of cake. I’m going next weekend.

Carson Bain (nephew of the bride): My mother says that as soon as we get back to New York I have to start seeing a tutor three times a week!

Douglas Carmichael (father of the bride): By my calculations, the wedding cost me between a hundred and seventy and a hundred and eighty thousand dollars. If Beth were alive, she would kill me for telling you that. She would also insist that I add that it was worth every penny. Which it was.

Roger (wedding planner): We all know what Tolstoy wrote about happy families being alike but unhappy families being unhappy in their own fashion. I am not Russian and I am not a novelist, and a hundred and fifty years from now, no one will be quoting me-but that’s not going to keep me from saying what I think. What I think is that every family is happy in their own fashion, and every family is unhappy in their own fashion. Every family is both functional and dysfunctional. The Carmichaels and the Grahams weren’t my easiest clients, nor were they my most difficult-not by a long shot. But they stood out. The first time Jenna and Margot came into my office and told me that they had lost their mother but she had left a Notebook behind, I thought, Now this is going to be interesting. And it was.

The thing Beth Carmichael wanted for her daughter more than anything was a beautiful day. I have to say, I have worked on over a hundred and seventy-five weddings-some in the driving rain and wind, some in a fug of unbearable heat and humidity, one in a blizzard (in April!)-and they have all, every single one of them, been beautiful days.

But especially this one.

Jenna Carmichael Graham (newlywed): Weddings are a big deal. You might think I would have realized this before yesterday, but I didn’t. It was only as I stood on the altar of the church with Stuart and my family and Stuart’s brothers and my best friends and Reverend Marlowe, and I looked out at all the faces of the people I loved who loved me back and wished the best for me, that I understood. Love is scary! Taking a vow to love someone through sickness and health, for richer for poorer, forsaking all others, until death do us part, is the most terrifying experience a person can have. Why pretend any differently?

Everyone loves a wedding!

Phyllis Frielich was unbelievable in her willingness to go over every possible detail of the Carmichael-Graham nuptials with me. She was filled with wonderful, creative ideas, and the bridal bouquet is her vision, along with many other details.

The Boston wedding planner Michelle Ciccarella and her cohorts Jackie Parker and Michelle Reid were the ones who got my gears moving, back in the fall of 2011. Thank you, ladies! Four Seasons forever!

Deborah Briggs Bennett, who is a friend so close she’s family, gave me the lowdown on the world of executive placement. I could never have written this book without her help. She also provided the inspiration for the section titled “The Registry, Part II: The Dining Room” and the answer to the timeless question “Does the twelfth Tiffany dessert fork matter?”

Renaissance man Andrew M. Porter, Esq., was my go-to guy on the profession of Douglas Carmichael and John Edgar Desvesnes III, as well as serving as my Civil War expert.

I will again crib the words of Anne Sexton to describe my editor at Little, Brown, Reagan Arthur: “Pure genius at work.” There’s really nothing else I can say. Reagan is always, always right-and I have seven books to prove it. The ways in which she made this book better are too numerous to name.

The other wizards and goddesses at Little, Brown who have made me the happiest author in America are: Michael Pietsch, Heather Fain, Terry Adams, Michelle Aielli, Marlena Bittner, Justin Levine, Sarah Murphy, and the most magnificent David Young.

My agenting team of Michael Carlisle and David Forrer at Inkwell Management are truly and forever my champions and my darlings.