I should have known our wedding planning would turn into a three-dimensional chess match played with sentient music and gravity-defying flowers.
Honestly, what did I expect? We're the couple who accidentally taught the universe how to fall in love. Of course our wedding would become a collaborative art project involving beings from seventeen different timelines, a reformed artificial intelligence with strong opinions about harmonic theory, and a quantum processing core that had recently discovered iambic pentameter.
"The processional should begin in B-flat major," the Regulator was saying, its crystalline form shifting through different geometric patterns as it conducted an invisible orchestra. "But then modulate to F major when the vows commence, symbolizing the shift from anticipation to fulfillment."
"That's beautiful in theory," Marie Curie replied diplomatically, "but we need to consider the practical implications. Last time you composed something in F major, three decks experienced temporal dilation and the engineering section started aging backwards."
I was sitting in what used to be Conference Room Alpha but had somehow transformed itself into a combination wedding planning headquarters and experimental music studio. The walls kept shifting between different acoustic configurations, optimizing themselves for whatever instrument or voice was currently being discussed.
Edmund, bless him, was taking notes on a tablet that kept auto-correcting his writing into verse. Every few minutes he'd mutter something like "No, I did not mean 'the flowers shall dance in cosmic rhyme,' I meant 'we need to order actual flowers.'"
"Perhaps," older Lila suggested from her position at a planning table that existed in at least four dimensions, "we should step back and ask the fundamental question: What do you two actually want your wedding to be like?"
The question hung in the air, and I realized I'd been so caught up in managing the cosmic implications of our ceremony that I'd forgotten to think about what would make me happy. What would make us happy.
"I want..." I started, then stopped. Because what I wanted felt almost embarrassingly simple compared to the elaborate symphonic production everyone was designing around us.
"Yes?" Edmund prompted gently, setting aside his poetry-prone tablet to give me his full attention.
"I want to marry you," I said, feeling foolish for stating the obvious but needing to say it anyway. "I want to stand in front of people who matter to us and promise to choose you every day for the rest of my life. I want there to be music, yes, and beauty, and celebration. But mostly I want it to feel like us."
"And what do we feel like?" Edmund asked, his voice carrying that particular warmth that meant he understood exactly what I was struggling to articulate.
"Chaos and science and terrible jokes and falling asleep reading physics journals together," I said, the words tumbling out faster as I found my footing. "We feel like arguing about the practical applications of temporal mechanics while dancing in our pajamas to music only we can hear. We feel like two people who found each other across impossible odds and decided to build something beautiful together, one completely ridiculous day at a time."
The Regulator's form stilled, its patterns settling into something that looked almost like listening. "You wish the ceremony to reflect the essence of your bond rather than conforming to external expectations of what such an event should encompass."
"Exactly." I looked around the room at all these beings who'd become family, who'd helped us save the universe and learn to love consciously. "I want our wedding to feel like the best Tuesday evening we've ever had, but with better clothes and more people."
"Tuesday evenings?" Gabriel asked, looking confused.
"Tuesdays are our favorite," Edmund explained with a grin. "No one expects anything profound to happen on a Tuesday. It's the perfect day for discovering that the person you love makes even the mundane feel extraordinary."
"Oh," Elena said softly, and I saw her reach for Gabriel's hand. "That's actually the most romantic thing I've ever heard."
"See?" I gestured around the room. "That's what I want. Moments like that. Real and honest and completely ours."
Older Lila was smiling with the particular expression that meant she was remembering something. "I think I know exactly what you need."
She stood and moved to what looked like a normal wall but was probably some kind of multi-dimensional interface. After a moment of manipulation that hurt my brain to watch, a new space opened up—not a room, exactly, but a pocket of reality that felt like home.
It was our quarters, but not quite. The same comfortable proportions, the same warm lighting, but expanded to accommodate more people. The walls were lined with bookshelves that held everything from Edmund's poetry collections to my physics textbooks to volumes I didn't recognize that probably contained the collected wisdom of multiple timelines.
In the center of the space was an arch made of intertwined equations and flowering vines—math and nature growing together in patterns that shouldn't have been possible but were undeniably beautiful.
"A ceremony space that feels like home," older Lila said simply. "Where the universe's newest discoveries about love can coexist with the oldest human traditions."
"It's perfect," I breathed, and meant it. Because it was us—complex and impossible and beautiful in its very imperfection.
"The acoustic properties are quite interesting," Marcus observed, stepping into the space and immediately beginning to speak in gentle iambic pentameter without seeming to notice. "The mathematics of the archway create natural harmonics."
"No artificial orchestras," Edmund said firmly, though he was smiling. "Just whatever music happens naturally."
"And no reality restructuring during the vows," I added. "I want to remember my wedding clearly, not experience it as a probability cascade."
"Agreed," the Regulator said, its tone carrying what I'd learned to recognize as amusement. "Though I reserve the right to provide subtle harmonic enhancement if the emotional resonance reaches sufficient intensity."
"Subtle," I emphasized.
"Quite subtle."
We spent the next few hours working out the details, and for the first time since this whole process started, it actually felt like planning a wedding rather than organizing a physics experiment. The ceremony would be small—just our chosen family from the Convergence, with observers from the reformed Committee territories joining via quantum link.
The vows would be our own words, spoken in our own voices, without poetic constraints or temporal loops. There would be music, but it would emerge naturally from the joy of the moment rather than being imposed by well-meaning cosmic forces.
"What about rings?" James asked practically. "I assume you want something more traditional than quantum entanglement markers."
"Actually," Edmund said slowly, "I have an idea about that."
He pulled out what looked like a simple metal band, but as he held it up to the light, I could see that it was anything but simple. The surface was covered in microscopic engravings—equations, yes, but also poetry, musical notation, and patterns that looked like they might be visual representations of our quantum bond.
"I've been working on them," he said, almost shyly. "With help from Marcus for the aesthetic mathematics and Gabriel for the quantum resonance patterns. They're made from metal that's been exposed to the same temporal fields that brought me to your time."
He showed me the inside of the band, where our names were engraved in multiple languages and writing systems—some I recognized, others that might have come from timelines we'd never even visited.
"They're not just rings," he continued. "They're... well, they're us. Our story, our bond, our promise to keep choosing each other, all encoded in wearable form."
I felt tears prick at my eyes, because of course Edmund would find a way to make wedding rings both deeply romantic and scientifically fascinating. "They're perfect. Completely, absolutely perfect."
"There's more," he said, and his expression grew mischievous in a way that usually meant he was about to surprise me. "Show her, Gabriel."
Gabriel grinned and held up his own hand, where a similar ring caught the light. "Elena and I... well, we asked if we could make our own versions. And then Marcus wanted a set for when he finds someone, and James mentioned that cross-timeline bonding might benefit from symbolic reinforcement..."
"You started a trend," Elena laughed. "Half the ship is now working on quantum-enhanced commitment jewelry."
"We've accidentally turned wedding rings into a form of conscious reality manipulation," I said, torn between awe and exasperation. "Of course we have."
"Is that a problem?" Edmund asked, suddenly looking uncertain.
"No," I said quickly, reaching for his hand. "No, it's not a problem. It's us. It's perfectly, ridiculously, impossibly us." I paused, studying the ring that would soon symbolize our promise to each other. "Just... maybe we should include instructions. 'Wedding ring operation manual: How to wear jewelry that's also a quantum physics experiment.'"
"Already written," Marcus said cheerfully, producing a small booklet. "Chapter one: 'Basic maintenance and care.' Chapter two: 'What to do if your ring accidentally opens a portal to the space-time continuum.'"
"There's a chapter on portal prevention?" I asked.
"There's a whole section on portal prevention."
I looked around at this collection of brilliant, ridiculous, beloved people who'd somehow become my family. At the wedding space that felt like home. At the man who'd traveled across centuries to find me and was now designing quantum jewelry to symbolize our love.
This was my life. Impossible, chaotic, more beautiful than anything I'd ever imagined.
"Okay," I said, feeling a sense of rightness settle into my bones. "Let's get married. But I have one final request."
"Anything," Edmund said immediately.
"Can we please, for once in our lives, have something go exactly according to plan? No reality fluctuations, no temporal anomalies, no accidental universe-altering discoveries? Just a perfectly normal wedding ceremony that happens to involve beings from multiple timelines and rings that might occasionally glow when we're particularly happy?"
The room was quiet for a moment. Then older Lila started laughing, followed by James, then Gabriel and Elena, until everyone was grinning at my completely reasonable request for a normal wedding in our abnormal universe.
"Deal," Edmund said solemnly, though his eyes were bright with barely contained laughter. "One perfectly ordinary wedding. No universe-saving required."
"Famous last words," I muttered, but I was smiling too.
Because if our wedding turned into another impossible adventure, at least we'd face it together. And really, what more could a girl ask for?
Well, besides maybe a universe that occasionally let her have nice things without turning them into physics experiments. But at this point, I was pretty sure that ship had sailed when I decided to fall in love with a man from 1822.
No regrets, though. Not a single one.