mostly open RP (to invitees and wedding-crashers): Henry and Camilla tie the knot.
The wedding wasn't until four, but Henry and his small crew of helpers -- i.e., Merlin and a gaggle of house-elves -- were in the Room of Requirement well before that, making certain everything was as it should be. Thankfully, S.A.R.A.H. and Camilla between them had taken care of things like flowers and cakes, which would have been a mystery to Henry. His contribution was more practical--counting chairs, making certain the more prosaic bits were handled. He was reasonably sure Camilla would be tense enough over everything, so in his quiet way he did as much as he could to ease the strain.
Henry, being superstitious by nature, had not seen her all day; he knew it was considered bad luck for the bride and groom to see one another on their wedding day, and he was enough of a believer in things like that that he wasn't about to risk it. Presumably Camilla would be busy with her own preparations, possibly aided (or, more likely, hindered) by Susan. While Henry knew very little about weddings, he was fairly certain that a bride had a number of unofficial rituals to complete before the ceremony.
Merlin, as ever a veritable sea of tranquility, had taken care of the altar himself. Henry had not asked what sort of a ceremony the wizard had in mind; he'd read a fair amount about early medieval wedding vows, and thought he could made a decent guess as to how it would go. Knowing him, he'd just have a lot of questions afterward. At least Merlin had foregone the feathered coat--Henry had no problem with it, but he knew Camilla might well have a difficult time not covertly snickering.
Henry himself wore one of his best suits, fine wool, black and immaculately pressed. He was rather grateful he hadn't had to go out and go through the bother of buying a tux, though he was certain it would irritate Francis to no end. Francis himself could be more than trusted to dress himself, and most likely Camilla would ensure Susan looked presentable--that took care of the wedding party, which was his only real concern. Everyone else could look like whatever the hell they felt like.
***
Camilla, for her part, had devolved into a shivering nervous wreck. More than anything she wanted her Nana. She took a very long bath, and washed her hair, and made up her face. Then she had a couple of cocktails. It was very lucky, all things considered, that she had secured the services of a weird talking car/house/thing by way of a Sorting bribe. Camilla could be a very good hostess under ordinary circumstances, but these were not ordinary circumstances. She felt like nothing so much as a deer brought to bay.
She turned up at Susan's door at noon in a bathrobe and fuzzy slippers, carrying a garment bag. One of Nana's old evening dresses would serve her for a wedding gown, she had decided. It would just be ridiculous to wear some kind of big frilly concoction when it wasn't a church wedding and the scale of the event would be so small. She reminded herself that she was very, very happy. It would help if she could see Henry -- he always had everything under control; she found his matter-of-fact confidence marvelously reassuring -- but she couldn't because she wasn't supposed to see him until Charles had delivered her up to the altar. So she got on with dressing as best she could, with Susan to zip up the dress for her and otherwise generally be no help at all, and then she made sure she hadn't smudged the smoky grey liner around her eyes or the claret gloss she'd painted onto her lips, and by the time she was done with that, somehow a lot of time had gone by.
She was very nearly late for her own wedding. But in the end she got there all right.
***
Susan, who knew full well she couldn't be of much help, could at least be calm for Camilla's sake. She'd contrived to look presentable, at least, and was doing her best to be a sensible anchor. How much good this actually did was debatable.
Fortunately, they ran into Merlin along the way. He hadn't performed many marriages, but he'd done enough to know that brides and grooms could both be terribly nervous. Henry seemed composed enough, but Merlin thought it worthwhile to check on Camilla.
"Are you ready?" he asked, in his usual serene way. Susan shot him a grateful look--she was terrible at this sort of thing, but she had only to look at Merlin to know he was not.
Camilla shrugged her one-shouldered shrug and gave the legendary wizard a smile that was really a little too bright. "I've been ready for ages," she lied. "Where's my brother?"
(( OOC: There are two parts to this. One is the wedding bit itself, which will be played out by the principals in its own thread, which Camilla's account has already posted below.
The other is the reception/dinner afterward, and for that, feel free to start your own threads here. As S.A.R.A.H. decided, there isn't any assigned seating. Instead, there will be lots of round tables at which people can choose to seat themselves, eight chairs per table -- think of the more disorganized sort of awards banquet and you'll probably have a good idea. The house elves will bring people whatever kind of meal they prefer, with special instructions to bring Yoda a plate of nice twigs. Rather than one large cake there are tiered single-serving cakes in a variety of flavors, again at S.A.R.A.H.'s brilliant suggestion. [GJ, have we told you lately that we love you?]
Finally, characters who have not been invited can crash the reception. Just think of some reasonable explanation for why they've heard there's a wedding going on -- unless they're Homestar, who just sort of turns up places. ))