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out.
    “Bite me hard,” Estelle muttered. “As if we’re not all going to suffocate in piles of flounce at this studio already.”
    I love being in my studio. I love hearing the ocean waves outside my French doors. I love the three skylights that let the sun in and the pitter-patter sound of rain on the glass. I love the two old rocking chairs and the matching crystal chandeliers I’d added blue and pink glass beads to. I love sitting in my plushy red chair with a crazy quilt or working at the humongous table down the center of the room or at the numerous sewing machines. There are four half-naked, naked, or fully dressed mannequins, and we have shelves and piles of lace, satin, velvet, and other sleek, silky materials used to make wedding, bridesmaids, and flower girls dresses, veils, and beribboned hats.
    “It’s an odd order, though,” Leoni said, her brow furrowed.
    “Even better.” I love odd orders. I am delighted to be in business with my odd orders. A bad day with odd orders is still far superior to a “good day” fighting with other strung-out attorneys in open court.
    “It’s rather witchly.”
    Witchly?
    “Is she a Bridezilla sort?”
    “I don’t think so.”
    “But you said the word ‘witchly.’ ”
    “Witchly,” Leoni said. “But not witchy.”
    “Did you tell her about the anti-Bridezilla contract?”
    “I did. She signed it and will fax it back.”
    I have each bride sign a contract before we start to reduce the chances of my having to deal with shrieking, hysterical women. It reads, in part:

    1. I will not be a Bridezilla.
     
    2. I will remember that this is one day of my life, one day. It should be a joyous and happy day about my husband and me and when I am tempted to throw a big hissy fit, I will remember that there are people starving in the world and scrambling for water or for protection from war and wrath and hideous extremists, and I will keep myself and my highly exaggerated importance of this one day in line.
     
    3. If I am obnoxious, June has the right to ban me from her studio forever. I understand there will be no refunds under any circumstances.

    I also do not start drawing a design, or sewing one single stitch, until I have all the money, up front and paid for.
    I do not mess with brides. I insist they not mess with me. Frankly, they’re so happy with the dresses, and most of our clients are so edgy and free-spirited to begin with, that most of the time they’re a pretty friendly bunch of women.
    “The order is for eight bridesmaids’ dresses,” Leoni said. “The bride said she saw the dresses you made for her friend, Dahlia. She didn’t even want to talk to you first, said her mind is made up. You’re the wedding dress designer for her, her words. Her credit card has been charged and it went through.”
    Ah, Dahlia.
    “Who can forget the bride Dahlia Parker and the dahlia bridesmaids’ dresses?” Estelle said. “The walking, talking flowers.” She fluffed out a gold skirt she was sewing. “Looking at Dahlia’s dresses was akin to looking at Alice in Wonderland versus the War of the Flowers. An epic battle for the meadow.”
    “They adored them,” Leoni said. “Dahlia cried. Remember how she said to the other girls, ‘Now we’re all dahlias’ and how they cheered and danced around our studio in their Dahlia dresses?”
    I put aside the mermaid wedding dress and flipped a page in a scrapbook on my desk. I have all my clients send me photos of themselves and their bridesmaids on their wedding days. Each bridesmaid in the Dahlia wedding had a different vibrantly colored dress in fuchsia, lavender, burgundy, lime, you get the point. There were eight of them. The dresses were form-fitting to the waist, then flared out under netting, the hem cut into the shapes of delicate, multicolored dahlia petals. We spent hours cutting out and sewing on delicate dahlias over one shoulder strap and down past the waistline.
    Dahlia herself wore a white dahlia dress.