Chosen Bride of the Seven Dark Princes

As the planning for the wedding became more and more frenzied, Candace and Poppy threw themselves into the preparations.

It was mind-boggling the amount of work that it took to organize such a major event. There were menus to finalize, flower choices and colors, dress styles to co-create with the twins, quarters to provide distant guests, and a myriad of other things that Candace had no idea were even part of the wedding.

"One of the first things you have to choose is the wedding colors. From there, things will flow much more smoothly." Poppy was saying as she went over the list of things that they needed to do.

She laughed when Candace gave her a blank stare.

"I can't choose for you or it would be a black and white affair."

"But the twins have told me that since I'm the Pink Avgo gemstone holder, it needs to have some pink—" Candace pursed her lips in thought.

"Yes, but nobody is insisting on a single color for your wedding. Let me ask you this. What's your favorite color?"

"Hmm." Candace scratched her head. "I like all colors. I enjoy a blue sky, green leaves, orange sunsets, white lilies, yellow sunflowers, and red lipstick."

Poppy gave a puzzled frown, mouthing the words 'red lipstick'. That didn't fit in with all the other color objects that Candace threw out.

"Okay, how about this. What colors do you like to look at placed side-by-side with pink?" Poppy tried again.

"Ahhh. I like the way Lucas' blond hair glistens next to the pink highlights the stylists put in his hair." Candace's eyes grew dreamy as she thought about her hunky Lucas.

"Okay, gold is one color we can add to the pink. Any others?"

"Oh and the twins' green hair looks awesome next to the pink too." She suddenly remembered how handsome they looked when they worked with the pink fabrics for her dresses.

Poppy grinned. "Looks like you are focusing on all the hair colors."

"It's hard to choose. Dante's blue hair looks good with the pink too. And come to think of it, so does Slate's raven black hair."

Poppy flicked her red hair, as if to remind Candace that there was one other hair color she could use.

"Hmm. Does red go with pink at all?" Candace mused as she bit the tip of her finger.

Poppy grimaced. She would NEVER wear pink, but Byron was her closest brother and he was being left out of this color scheme.

"You have to add it in because I'm going to be your bride's maid and I have to be able to wear something to your wedding." She suggested lightly.

Candace nodded. "You've convinced me, my beautiful red-haired bridesmaid. Let's add red to the color scheme! Wait a moment, what are the colors again?"

Poppy scratched her head. "At last count, it's pink, blue, gold, green, black, and red."

Candace's face twisted in a strange funny shape. "Do those colors work for a wedding?"

Poppy shrugged. "We can take these color ideas and let Jason and Jared look over them."

"Good idea." Candace brightened. If Jason and Jared were involved, it would turn out great, no matter what.

"Now. We have to talk about the numbers of invitations that have to be hand-signed. Already, the numbers are coming in from all sides of the wedding parties. It's in the thousands."

"WHAT??? NO!!!" Candace howled in protest.

Poppy rolled her eyes. "Honey, you have SEVEN grooms! They have friends, family, important people they can't NOT invite."

"Like who???"

"Well, all seven men have very large extended families. You can't NOT invite their mothers' families, can you?"

"Mothers' families absolutely must be invited." Candace sighed.

"But that's not all." Poppy shook her head and began listing on her fingers.

"Think about all the directors and movie moguls Lucas works with, all the heads of states Byron works with, all the CEOs of huge corporations Dante works with, all the powerful military heads Slate works with, and all the heads of the medical world Leo works with."

She waved her hand in frustration. "I'm not even going to go into all the people the twins work with because I have no idea who's in their intelligence group."

"And that's not including Father's guests. He deals with Kings and monarchs of entire worlds. You can't leave them out of something like this or they think it's a slight to their world."

"The Emperor…" Candace's eyes nearly popped. She hadn't thought about that.

Poppy's violet eyes softened. "Let's talk about you, Honey. Who are you going to invite?"

Candace paused. "Me?"

She thought about all the people she had known in her life, all of whom were no longer even around.

Her parents had adopted her as a young child and had cared for her in the most basic manner. They had clothed and fed her, and sent her to school, but there had not been much of a warm family atmosphere.

Both had died in a car accident when she was away at college and that had ended all family ties she had with anyone on Earth.

After she graduated from university, the only people she hung out with on the rare occasion were co-workers who she barely knew. Even her bosses had turned against her and sent people from Earth to kill her.

"I honestly don't know anyone well enough to invite, and there is no one on Earth that I would care to invite."

Poppy bared her teeth. "So we're going to have literally THOUSANDS of people on the grooms' side and not a single person on the bride's side?"

This was not good. Candace needed at least one guest.

Poppy scratched her forehead. "What about that girl Jeanie?"

Jeanie?

Candace wrinkled her brows, trying to remember if she knew of anyone named Jeanie.

"Oh you mean Jenna Natoli, the cougar from Calendula." Candace smiled. "I guess I could invite her."

"Okay, at least there's one guest on the bride's side." Poppy smiled, trying not to feel too badly for Candace.

"But we really have to figure out how to limit the numbers of guests coming." Poppy shook her head in consternation. "Honestly, there are too many guests. We are going to have to hand-sign thousands of invitations. Thousands!!!"

Hand-sign? Candace's jaw dropped.

"Don't we have rubber stamps?"

Poppy gave Candace a grimace. "That's the height of gauche. We can't do that or we will be considered extremely rude."

Candace shook her head. "Nobody has ever seen my signature."

"What does that mean?"

"That means I can have a dozen attendants sign my name on the card and everyone will never know that it wasn't me who signed the card." Candace grinned.

Poppy sighed. "You are too smart for your own good."

She didn't want to break it to Candace that they could not allow attendants to sign the invitations because those were official government documents, according to Erenveil laws regarding royal marriages. Anyone who did not have some sort of official capacity would invalidate all the invitations.

This meant it would have to be Poppy herself, or at the very least someone in Poppy's position, who could sign the invitations.

All several THOUSANDS of them!!!