The inn was an old classic English inn with wooden floors and doors and big beer mugs – something that Niall enjoyed quite a bit – but the walls were painted in a light cream color, making the rooms seem bigger and brighter, which was nice.

When we arrived there about twenty minutes later, small flakes of snow had begun falling slowly and lazily from the grey winter sky. As soon as we entered the inn we were handed glasses of champagne by waiters in white uniforms and classic white gloves.

“Wow, fancy,” Em said eying up the big room that held all the many guests for the reception. There were big round wooden tables with rustic looking wooden chairs standing at them, the contrast between the white bright walls and the dark wood was beautiful and created the perfect mixture between elegance and comfort.

The many, many people attending this reception started filling the room and noise from people chatting spread out. I don’t know for how long we were waiting for them, but when Louis and Eleanor entered the big room I couldn’t help but get all emotional once again.

“I can’t believe they’re actually married!” Aida exclaimed looking at the two of them like she had just as much trouble wrapping her mind around this as me.

“I know,” Harry nodded agreeing. As I glanced around me all the boys looked really relaxed and happy and not as crazily excited as Aida, Em and I.

“Congratulations bro,” Liam smiled to Louis, when he’d finally found his way to us many minutes later of greeting all the other people. He pulled him in for a long tight hug and I could tell that his eyes turned a bit wet, which made it all too much. To see how affected Louis’ best friends seemed to be by his own happiness, was the sweetest and most amazing thing I’d ever seen.

The fact that Eleanor just walked over to me from between a few other woman with the widest smile on her face made me tear up on the spot.

“Oh, sweetie, don’t cry,” she said pulling me in for a hug.

“You just got married!” I sobbed. “You just look so happy.”

“Aw, that’s so nice,” Louis said and gave me a tight hug as soon as Eleanor had let go of my shoulders.

“Crap…” I mumbled as I desperately tried to keep my smokey eye makeup in place.

“Here…” Em said turning my face towards her and saving me from looking like an alien for the rest of the day.

“Thank you,” I smiled at her as Louis and Eleanor went on to hug and get praised by the rest of our group.

Unfortunately the newly married couple had a lot more responsible on this special day than we’d expected, they didn’t have enough time for chatting with our group of friends for more than a few minutes, before they were forced to go on to the rest of the about 200 guests celebrating them.

The wedding cake arrived a while later and the several glasses of champagne had already had its effect on me and as my dress didn’t seem to complain too much about my waistline, I decided to have a taste with the huge, six tiered, beautiful white cake. It was insanely pretty with white lace pattern matching the fabric on Eleanor’s wedding dress and ribbon just as the one in her waist. It literally looked like her entire dress, it was like the cake was made by Elie Saab, which was nothing but to die for.

Turned it tasted delicious, which was really good for Niall, who had been complaining about having to survive on only breakfast until two o’clock in the afternoon – even though his breakfast had consisted of a huge pile of bacon and eggs and toast, probably enough to feed an army.


After the reception everybody headed towards an old estate about half an hour away from the inn. I loved how they’d chosen to keep the style traditional and classic English, with the old buildings and venues, it was really lovely.
The decoration of the estate was in the same style as the inn for the reception, with the white bright walls standing up against the dark wooden beams going all across the ceiling and the walls, because of the really old construction.

We were eventually sat at our places around the round tables, our friend group had been so lucky to be seated at the table next to Louis, Eleanor and their closest family. I politely greeted all of them, presenting myself as Niall’s girlfriend wasn’t exactly something I had grown tired of yet. I noticed how Louis’ mum’s eyes were still red and swollen, even though she weren’t crying anymore at this point. She was the sweetest woman, it was from her that Louis had gotten his pretty eyes and insanely good looks, that was for sure.

Lou and Tom were sat at our table as well, and since children were only allowed access at the reception and not the party, Lux had been picked up by Tom’s mother at the inn, she was going to babysit her for this night. I was sat between Lou and Niall, which was nice, cause this way I finally got to really talk to that amazing woman that she truly was.


Throughout the next couple of hours we were served so many different small fancy courses, they all tasted extremely good and luckily the tiny size of them didn’t make it too difficult to fit in my belly underneath the lace fabric on my black Elie Saab dress.
In between the courses many people were speaking to Louis and Eleanor, both of their parents, Louis’ younger sisters did the cutest little speech, where they all said a funny thing or two about their rather irresponsible big brother.


And then it was time for Perrie’s toast. Which was probably the only thing that she’d been nervous or anxious about today. She stood up from her chair and folded out a small piece of paper that she’d been hiding in her black purse. I quickly looked over at Eleanor to see that she looked both excited and a bit surprised as Perrie’s voice began speaking:

“Dear Eleanor and Louis…” she said. “I’ve known you for almost four years now, through Zayn, who I was so lucky to get to know back then. You two were already together at that time, but it took a while for me to actually meet you Eleanor, because Louis, Zayn and the rest of the boys were so busy with their first tour. And I had only heard your name being said among them and seen a couple of pictures of you, so I had kind of already created an image of you as a person when I finally met you. I assumed that you were going to be an incredible kind person with a great sense of humor. I assumed that you would be… tall…”

Everybody laughed at her cute story, before she continued:

“You know, since you’re a model. And I assumed that you would be really outgoing, since you were dating, you know… somebody like Louis…”

More laughs.

“And I was completely right about everything; You turned out to be the sweetest person I’ve ever known, you’re so hilarious to spend time with and you have never made me feel any less but welcome in your company. These are just some of the reasons that we’ve become as good friends as we have…”


Perrie’s speech was the kindest words ever and the look on Eleanor’s face was the most beautiful thing, she had tears in her eyes throughout the entire speech, but they didn’t fall at any point.

Then Perrie nodded towards me, Em and Aida to stand – just as we’d discussed it weeks ago. Several pairs of eyes widened at us, especially our friends, who didn’t know anything about this.
And according to our little plan, I was the first one to say the few lines that I’d prepared for today:

“Eleanor and Louis, the three of us don’t know you nearly as much as so many other people. We’ve in fact only known you since this summer, when you visited Denmark on your holiday. But right since then, it has been nothing but a privilege to us. Separately you two are both some of the sweetest, funniest and most intelligent people I’ve ever met, and together you’re both exactly the same. Your personas don’t ever change according to each other, which I admire so much. Cause that’s the inevitable evidence on the fact that you belong together.”

Em then took over after me:

“I feel like I have so much in common with both of you, you both contain so many admirable qualities that the three of us have been so lucky to be able to experience through the last five months. Louis, at first you always come off as a really bubbly and outgoing person, but once you get to know you it turns out that you are a bubbly and outgoing person…”

The humor in her voice was clear and the chuckles quickly spread out through the room, before she continued:

“Eleanor, as soon as I was about to shake your hand the first time we met, you immediately pulled me in for a hug instead. You were so welcoming and kind to me from the very first second, even though you had no idea who I was, other than a friend of Maja’s, who you’d also just met. I could have been a total bitch and you wouldn’t have treated me any different at that point. Very fortunate for you, you avoided getting your feelings hurt, since I’m so incredibly nice.”

The laughs enhanced even further and Aida had to wait a few seconds before she could begin speaking:

“There isn’t actually much to say to you two, besides how brave and beautiful it is that you chose to get married and dared to commit yourself completely to each other. Some people might say that that’s stupid. Some people might think that you’re too young to make a decision like that. But those are the people that don’t know, the people that don’t matter. I’ve had the privilege to be your friend lately and get to experience the incredible intelligence that you two share. You are well aware of what you’re doing, when you choose to get married. You commit yourself to each other – forever. And that’s the exact reason why you did so. I respect that, I respect you more than anything. And I believe that you will have a very happy life together.”

Then we all grabbed our glasses from the tables and raised them as Perrie said:

“You deserve nothing else but each other. Congratulations to Louis and Eleanor.”

The cheers sounded from around the room and people then began applauding us, as a tearful Eleanor stood up from her chair and came over to hug each of us, closely followed by a widely smiling Louis.

“Thank you so much,” Eleanor whispered in my ear and I wiped away a tear from the corner of her eye, smiling brightly at how emotional she’d gotten.


We only got to sit and relax while eating course number four, before Niall hit his knife against one of the many huge wine glasses behind his completely cleared out plate. But he wasn’t the only one standing up, all the boys stood, all correcting their beautifully crafted tuxes as they got ready to speak. Instead of standing where they were they all walked over to the end of the room where the piano player, who’d been playing some smooth jazz throughout the entire afternoon, was sitting at the big black piano.

Everybody turned their heads curiously towards them as Harry, Niall, Zayn and Liam all grabbed a microphone from the stands that had been lined up for some band that would be playing later.
They all made a sound in to the microphones to make sure that they were working properly.

“Okay, so…” Niall began when they were working perfectly and they’d all pulled out pieces of paper. “Louis. You’re our best friend. We’ve been through practically everything together, since we were put together almost six years ago.
We’ve influenced each other more than anyone else as we were growing up. And we still are. Because of the job that we have, it can be quite difficult to find time for anything else, without it affecting it too much. Which is why I wasn’t too excited when you first met Eleanor, about five years back.
Cause first of all I wasn’t sure whether you would be able to have anything near a serious relationship, just as we were about to go on our first real tour. But as you sit there…” he gestured towards the two of them with his hand, “I realize that I might have to take this seriously, eventually.”

Everybody burst in to laughter, before Zayn took over.

“And we know that you also had your doubts, whether it was a good idea to begin a relationship in your kind of situation. You were reconsidering it over and over again, you wanted to be absolutely sure that it was the real thing, in order not to get Eleanor hurt, cause…”

He paused for a second just as the piano player began playing some chords for a song that I’d definitely heard before. And I was the first one to loudly laugh, as embarrassing as it was, when I recognized the chords, right before Zayn started singing:

“Wise men say... Only fools rush in…”

Then all the boys joined in on an arrangement of three different voices on the words: “But I can’t help falling in love with you…”


Fuck. That was hilarious. Everybody were already laughing and it was easy to tell that the boys themselves were having trouble concentrating on just singing and not burst in to laughter, especially Niall.

They sang the next verse as well, before the music faded out and Harry began speaking:

“Cause you also wanted to make sure that Eleanor was serious about her feelings for you, cause being with you wasn’t going to be easy. I remember you coming to me, asking me if I could help you. You weren’t sure whether she really wanted to be with you or not. To be honest, it was a bit funny to see you so insecure and worried for once, and that was when I knew that you were in it deeply. This wasn’t a joke to you. And I knew that if you ever dared yourself to feel this way about someone, they must be very special to you. This brown haired girl must be in love with you as well. So I told you…”

The piano began playing again and this time all of the boys began singing at the same time:

“She loves you, yeah yeah yeah… She loves you, yeah yeah yeah…”

Through my tears of laughter I glanced over at Louis and Eleanor to see how they were laughing loudly as well as the rest of us, Louis’ hand on top of his wife’s on the table.


“And then you two began dating for real…” Liam said. “In the middle of our tour. And you were away the majority of the time and had a really busy schedule, making it difficult to find time to even speak together. That’s why you spent every available moment on your phone, even if it was just for a minute or two…”

More piano. And then they began singing:

“I just called… to say… I love you… I just called to say how much I care…”


My heart dropped at that second and I immediately stopped laughing. That song had always meant a huge deal to me and somehow – no matter who sang it – I would always get so emotional whenever I heard it. I’d always been a huge Stevie Wonder fan and even though this was one of his really corny songs, the chorus somehow still hit a sensitive spot inside my emotional register, it struck hard each single time I heard.

Everybody else still laughed and began singing along with the boys and clapping along and they took the chorus one more time – lucky for me – before the music faded out once again, before Niall was speaking again.

“And here we are today… On this amazing estate… Dressed fine and everything, eating and drinking and celebrating the fact that you, Louis, are now married to – and I think that it’s okay to dare using this expression on a day like today – the love of your life. And here I’m talking about the brown haired girl that Harry spoke of earlier, Eleanor is her name. Today you gave her a promise. You promised her that…”

The piano played a couple of loud chords, indicating that this was going to be the big finale. Right at the last chord all of the boys threw away all of the papers in their hands in a dramatic gesture that caused Aida to almost fall off of her chair from hard laughter. At this point she’d completely lost her fabulous and collected outer that she’d been having all day, at this point she revealed her most charmless side; which was when she was laughing so hard that her full set of lips parted so much that her mouth looked more like a cave or something, it seemed as though that was the only way she could let out the feelings that were bubbling up inside of her. And she didn’t care one bit at this point. Just watching her was enough to make me crack up and along with the words that the boys began singing, I had tears streaming down my cheeks in the matter of a second.

“And Iiiiiiiiiiii... Will always… love yooooou…” the boys sang at the top of their lungs, and they were absolutely smashing it with their many different voices and great harmonies, but it was clear that the hardest thing about this was to keep a reasonably clear tone, while preventing them from laughing too much.

They ended their performance with one last long harmony and everybody immediately stood up applauding them loudly as they made small bows smiling widely. I saw Louis pushing his way through the many people and pull Liam in for a tight, real guys’ hug, as he was the first one standing in the row that they’d made on the small stage. Eleanor followed him and I could tell that even though she was still laughing, the whole performance had still touched her so much.


The atmosphere got more and more light after that. As people had more and more to drink and started feeling completely comfortable in each other’s company, the laughs spread out and got louder and louder each hour.

Right before the dessert it was time for the speech that I think everybody had been waiting for: The groom’s speech.


The familiar sound of a knife hitting the side of a big wine glass sounded through the room and everybody turned towards Louis as he stood up from his chair and corrected his tux, the exact same way that the boys had done it earlier. He coughed a couple of times and pulled out a tiny piece of paper from his the pocket inside his jacket. He took a couple of deep breaths and actually looked… nervous. Yeah. Louis was nervous.
I noticed how people straightened their backs and widened their eyes as he messed his hair around the way he always did it, the way that made him look so gorgeous, and he took a couple of deep breaths.

“Eleanor,” he finally sighed with a kind smile towards his bride sitting on the chair by his side.
“You probably know that I’ve been feeling really nervous and anxious about giving this speech today. Not because I didn’t know what to say, I have more likely had a lot of trouble choosing what to talk about and what to leave out. When I began writing this speech about a month ago, it filled over fifteen pages. If that was caused by my poor hand writing, I don’t know…”

We smiled at his little cute joke, before he continued:

“The first three pages I’m not going to leave out, cause that’s the formal speech that needs to be done. Therefor I’m more than glad to say thank you so all of you showing up today on this very special day. It means the world to me to see all the faces that I recognize and love smile and celebrate Eleanor and I. Thanks to the bridesmaids, Perrie, Aida, Maja and Em. You’ve all become really special to Eleanor and to see the support that she can find in you girls makes me so happy. I’m sure that the boys – and the rest of the people sitting in here today – will agree with me when I say that you guys look damn fine today.”

We all laughed and some people whistled and I noticed how all of us girls blushed heavily from the positive attention. The squeeze from Niall’s hand on my thigh under the table sent shivers down my spine, and I looked down shyly at my other hand clenching the napkin.

“Thank you for being here today,” Louis ended his words to us. “To the boys, my best men. My best friends. You guys mean the world to me. Really. I don’t know where I would be, or who I would be, if I hadn’t met you. I’ve learned so much from each of you and I still do, every single day…”

He suddenly took another deep breath and the sparkles from the light hitting the liquid forming in his eyes told everybody that this was a sensitive subject to him. He took a couple of seconds to compose himself, before continuing:

“Zayn, you are such a big inspiration to me. The way that you care about your surroundings so deeply and the way that you know yourself and your values, is so admirable. It’s something that I’m trying to achieve in my own life and to have a friend like you that I know will always have my back, no matter what, means everything. Thank you for being such a big support.

Niall, you are like my little brother. The younger brother that I never had…”

I couldn’t help but laugh along with everybody else, as we all thought of the fact that Louis had an army of younger sisters, but not a single brother.

“You’ve always been able to brighten up my mood, no matter what day it was and no matter what had happened. But the thing about younger brothers… is that they grow up. Suddenly you realize that this person is smarter than you thought. And even smarter than yourself. Niall, with you by my side I know that nothing evil will ever get to me. You make me feel secure. You make me feel like the younger brother. Something that I’ve never had the chance to feel before and with anybody else. Thank you for that.

Liam. You and I can seem very different. And God knows we really are. There are many things that could create huge clashes between us, but we’ve always been really good at preventing that from happening. And I think that in some way… that that’s because we’re much more alike, than we think. We have a lot more in common than we know. Your calmness, your strength, your trustworthy person is just a few of the things that I admire about you. Through the years you’ve taught me some of these qualities and I’m so grateful for that. You’re my rock, Liam. I know that you will always be there and I feel nothing but lucky, every single time I get reminded of that.

Harry. From the very first day we met, we clicked. We instantly became close friends and there’s never been a moment with you that I haven’t enjoyed. You’re an amazing person, you’re so many years ahead of yourself and that’s why you’re always the one that I seek for advice to. Cause you always have an answer, you always seem to know me better than I know myself. I can only hope that I have convinced you that you can always come to me, whenever you need it – no matter what the case is. Cause I promise that I will be there for you and try to be just anything near as good a friend to you, as you are to me. Thank you, Harry.

I also want to thank my parents. Without you I wouldn’t be here today. I wouldn’t be here at all. So first of all, thank you, mum, for giving birth to me. Life has been a gift for me so far and it makes me so insanely excited to think that I haven’t even lived through a third of it. Hopefully. And one of the most important things that has made this life so amazing for me, is you two. Your devotion, your wisdom and your unconditional love for me and my sisters has made this life more than worth living. And I just… wanted to let you know that even though, I’m not always there, even though I’m away a lot… I think of you every single day, I still sense the strongest support of all, which is my family. I can’t wait until I’m able to create one myself, and I promise that I will do my very best to honor you two and the effort that you made in making my life as perfect as possible. Thank you mum and dad. I love you.”

Louis’ mum was now full on crying once again, even though I had eventually thought that there couldn’t possibly be any more tears left in that poor eyes of hers, but that woman continued to surprise everybody over and over again.

Her son went on with his speech where he thanked some people I hadn’t met until today, some people that had helped with the whole arranging of the wedding and also the cook, the wedding planner, his sisters and Eleanor’s parents.


“The last twelve pages I had left when I wrote this at first, was all about the most important thing to me in this world. It’s all about this woman sitting next to me,” he then began but got stopped by his own sob leaving his mouth and the tears that had been pressing in his eyes, since he’d spoken to the boys, were now streaming down his face. I had to bite my lip in order not to do the same.

He looked down at Eleanor who was crying again as well. She took his hand in hers, giving him the support that he needed to express the words in a way that he’d never done it before.

“You’ve been the hardest part about this speech. Not to find anything to say, but I knew I had to pick out only a few things out of the hundreds and thousands to say about you today, or else I could go on and on forever and it’s been torture to me. Nothing but torture. Cause you’re not a person that I can limit down to only a couple of pages. I could write books about you, Eleanor…” he cried.

His words became all too much for everybody to handle and with Louis’ mum leading the troops the sniffles and sobs started spreading out throughout the tables. Eleanor struggled to compose herself enough to keep her eyes open and look at the man speaking kindly down at her. Or in this situation… he looked more like a boy, and not a man. He looked more vulnerable than ever, he was completely exposing himself to everybody for the first time in his life, and not just to the woman in front of him.

“I’ve tried to re-write my speech where I tried to list just a handful of things that I love about you. Like, the way that you always complain whenever you have to comb your hair after a shower. You always say that it doesn’t matter how much conditioner you put in it, you still have to spend half an hour on trying to comb out the knots forming in your neck. I love the fact that you would rather eat cereal straight from the box and not with any milk, because you hate when they go saggy after a couple of minutes. I love how you look when you listen to an idea I have for a song, you look so thoughtful. I love when you find the time to attend to any of my shows and how I know I can always find support in your beautiful, beautiful, green eyes. I love how you look when you’re concentrated about something, you always frown your forehead, you always make me want to smooth out that frown.
Those are just a tiny, tiny bit of what I love about you. Then I could of course begin talking about your incredible sense of humor, your boundless intelligence, your never-ending kind smile, your compassion, your devotion, the fact that you could possibly love a fool like me.”

The small piece of paper in his hand had been put back in to his pocket the minute he’d finished the formal speech, every word he said to Eleanor came straight from the heart. As he listed all those things up it became clear to everybody that they weren’t something that he could possibly forget. All those things that he loved about his wife were things that stood bright and clear in his mind.

“But that didn’t work for me either. I had too many things in my mind, I had too many feelings in my body to be able to limit them to only words. But about a week ago… when you’d just stepped inside the door to our apartment, you’d been out for the final fitting of your wedding dress and the girls’ bridesmaid’s dresses… I realized something – right after I’d quickly hidden all the paper that I’d been writing on…”

We all smiled along with Eleanor through our tears.

“I looked at you. You looked so happy and excited about the wedding and spoke gladly of how beautiful your bridesmaids were going to be… While listening to you it became clearer and clearer to me.
I wasn’t ever going to be able to write you a proper speech. A speech that honored you in any way near what you deserve. I was not – and will never – be able to write down in words what exactly you mean to me. I simply have too many.
Cause I haven’t only been writing this speech through the past month. I’ve been writing it for the past five years, Eleanor.”

Oh God. This was too much. Everybody had become a mess at this point, the boys were all crying, even Niall, and us girls were even worse. Em’s shaking shoulders were the evidence on the struggles that she had with composing her breathing and stay quiet enough in order not to ruin this incredibly special moment for Louis and Eleanor.

“I’ve been wanting to marry you since the very first day I met you. You have enriched my life in ways that nobody else could ever do it. Cause nobody’s like you. And even though I’ve never been one to use any cheesy lines, I’m going to say what is obvious to me. I know that I’ve married my best friend today, you’re my soul mate. You make me feel things I haven’t felt before, you make me fall in love with you even more each day that goes by. I can’t imagine how I will feel when you and I are old and grey haired, in fifty years, but I can’t wait to see how. I can’t wait to spend the rest of my life with you.

And yes, some people say that we’re too young to make a decision like this, that we don’t know which direction we will grow, cause we’re still growing. But all I can say about that is that since I met you five years ago you and I have grown together and become stronger, better. We’ve been through so much and it hasn’t always been easy. To be away from you hurts more than anything, it makes me realize how much I need you.
I’ve been falling in love with you so deeply that I honestly don’t remember how I ever managed to survive without you before. I’ve realized that I survived, but I didn’t live. I’m just relieved and incredibly happy that I managed to get through life, just in time to meet you. You taught me how to live, Eleanor. I can’t thank you enough for that.

I married you today, because I don’t ever wish to be away from you. I married you today in a vague attempt to show my love for you, all though not even a gesture like this sums it up properly at all. You complete my life, with you by my side, I don’t need anything else.
The thought of spending the rest of my days with no one but you is the most comforting and at the same time exciting thing I’ve ever experienced. I’ve never been this emotional in front of anybody but you, until today. Cause from now on, you and I are showing to everybody what we mean to each other. You and I are husband and wife now.”

He took a few seconds to wipe away the tears from his cheeks with the back of his hand before saying what would probably be the last words of this beautiful speech.

“You will be my life, Eleanor, but you will also be my death. The day I die, will be the day my heart is too tired to beat any further. The day that my love for you has worn my heart out completely. Until then, I’m nothing but yours. Thank you for marrying me. I love you more than words can say.”

He raised his glass with the hand that didn’t hold on to Eleanor’s tightly, but his eyes didn’t leave hers when he said: “To my beautiful Eleanor.”

Instead of taking a sip of his glass, she took it out of his hand and sat it back down on the table, before she stood up and wrapped her arms around his neck tightly. The stream of tears down her cheeks was endless, but she didn’t say a word. She just held her husband tight in her arms, the same way he did with her.

Around them there was nothing but complete silence.

Notes