Every little girl dreams of being a princess on their wedding day, with their white flowy dress, beautiful flowers, and the perfect prince charming waiting for them at the end of the aisle. I was going to be Cinderella at my wedding. I was going to have the big puffy dress with the perfect hair; my colors would be silver and white. I would tie the knot on New Year’s Eve in front of Cinderella’s castle. It was a big dream but I was daddy’s little girl and no dream was too big for him to make a reality.

I’ve had my dream wedding organized since I was around six. I was still at the age where boys were gross but dresses and flowers were my favorite things. And I was a Disney baby there was no denying that. I loved the movies, and the princesses were my idols. So it only seemed fitting that when I grew up I would get married in my favorite place in front of the prettiest castle I had ever seen.

A fairytale that was what my wedding was going to be, the perfect day to kick off my happily ever after with my perfect prince. I knew all of this at the mere age of six, and as I grew up my dream wedding stayed with me and as guys came and went I never changed my expectations and if they weren’t Prince Charming they were kicked to the curb.

When I was 26, I had gone through so many frogs I was a hundred percent sure that there was no prince in my future. So instead of focusing on my dream wedding I focused my attention on my perfect promotion. I am a writer for the New York Villager, and now am striving
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for an editor position. I had been working on the paper for almost three years now. Granted one of those years was as an intern, but the other two was as a fully fledged fashion writer. An editor’s spot for the Fashion section had just opened up and it was my dream job. I knew everyone in the fashion section, and let’s be honest, there was no competition, I was a shoe in for this promotion.

“Alyssa, can I see you in my office.” My stomach jumped into my throat when my boss buzzed in to request my presence. This was it. She must be calling me in to tell me I got the promotion. In five minutes I would be the editor of fashion for the Villager.
“You wanted to see me?” I asked as I entered her office.
“Yes, please have a seat.”
I noticed a man sitting in the chair next to the one that Carrie, my boss, was instructing me to sit in. I had never met him but I wouldn’t mind getting to know him. “I’ve called you in today to discuss the editor position that has opened up.”
“Oh, Carrie, thank you so much I am so thankful for this opportunity and I want you to know I am going to make you proud!” I gushed without letting Carrie explain if I really had gotten the position. The guy sitting beside me left out a laugh that annoyed me but at the same time was kind of cute.
“Alyssa, honey I am not sure you understand why you are here. You are one of our best writers and would be a wonderful editor.” There was a but coming I could feel it. “But we have given the position to Mr. Edgewood here.” Carrie pointed to the guy sitting beside me; he looked at me and flashed his gloating smile, which made me sick. I had never met this man and looking at his
plaid shirt with his striped tie I had the feeling he knew nothing about fashion and here he was waltzing into my area of expertise and snatching up the job that was rightfully mine.

I didn’t leave time for Carrie to say anymore, I got up and left as fast as I could. And as I picked up the pace to my office I heard someone yell my name from behind me. “Ms. Williams, wait.” I turned back around to see Mr. Editor walking towards me. Great he wants to gloat some more, or worse he’s going to start his reign as editor by giving me the worse stories possible.

“What can I do for you Mr. Editor?” I asked coldly

“Well, first of all you can start calling me Patrick.” He gave a smile, this time it was a sweet smile. My heart softened for a moment and I studied his beautiful green eyes that looked great. With his soft brown hair he looked just like Prince Charming from Cinderella. I was getting lost in those eyes when a voice in my head knocked me back into reality and I remembered what had just happened.

“Actually, I will stick with Mr. Editor if you don’t mind.” I kept my composure making sure he didn’t know where my thoughts had just been.
“As you wish, I just wanted to apologize about the misunderstanding. I thought they had already informed everyone that I was coming in as editor.” Such a likely story but he did sound convincing, damnit.

“its fine, win some lose some I guess.” I turned to leave when he grabbed my arm and I looked into his eyes a little spark of warm energy ran through my body causing me to have to fight back a small smile. I hastily pulled my arm away. “I have to go I’m sorry.” I headed to my office as fast as I could.

I wanted to hate Patrick; he had come in and ruined everything I thought was going to happen for me. Yet I couldn’t seem to muster up any hate all I could do was think about his adorable smile. And then the person I actually hated was myself. Why did I get butterflies when thinking about the smug guy who had come and stolen what I so rightfully deserved, maybe it was his dorky smile and cute laugh, no stop this Alyssa, he doesn’t deserve the time of day.

As soon as I returned to my office I dialed my best friend Liv’s number, knowing she would be able to talk me down from the ledge I was on.
“Hello sweet pea! Calling so I can congratulate you on the promotion?” of course she would remember.
“He stole it!” I screamed into the phone not realizing how loud I was.
“Who stole what?” she asked obviously confused.
“Patrick, he came and he stole the promotion and let me just tell you there is no way he knows more about fashion then I do.”
“Wait whose Patrick?”
“Some new big shot who thinks he can walk into my magazine and take what I worked my a** off for.”
“Oh… wow”
“Wow? That’s all you have to say right now? I just lost the biggest opportunity that I could have possibly got at the magazine to someone who has been here for less than five minutes and all you have to say is wow?”

“Wow that sucks! Is that better?”
“Why the hell did I call you?”

“That is a very good question. Sweetie we know you are amazing when it comes to writing fashion and just because your boss doesn’t see that doesn’t make it less true. And because you are so amazing I suggest we go celebrate tonight, what do you say?
“Sure, sounds good.” I hung up the phone not a hundred percent sure that Liv understood how upset I really was, but at the same time maybe a few drinks would help.

Later that night I met up with Liv at a bar not too far from the office. We found two open stools at the bar, “a pineapple martini and a pomegranate martini.” I told the bartender and the process of forgetting the events of the day began. If my count is right it was about seven martinis later when Liv tapped me on the shoulder, “Alyssa, that cute guy is totally checking you out.” she nodded her head over towards the pool table. As I followed her gaze I found my eyes meeting Patrick’s.

“You’ve got to be kidding me.” I let out.

“What’s wrong?” Liv questioned.

“That’s the guy who stole my job.”

“Oh shnappp.” Liv exclaimed clearly slurring her words.
I looked back over to where Patrick had been standing only to see him headed straight towards us. “S***” before I could get off the stool Patrick was already beside me.

“hey, Alyssa right?” he asked with a smile.

“well, well, well, if it isn’t Mr. Editor. Shouldn’t you be working on keeping the job you stole from me?”

“about that, I wanted to see if I could buy you a drink kind of as an apology for the misunderstanding.” I was mad but I couldn’t turn down a drink, so of course I agreed.
The sun shone through the window beside the bed and as I woke up I could feel my head pounding, how many drinks had I had last night and where was I? As I came to I realized this wasn’t my bedroom, it was too big. I felt someone stir beside me and assuming it was Liv I turned to see if she knew where we were. But to my surprise Liv was not next to me, instead I found a sleeping, shirtless guy, what had I done last night? I leaned over to see who the mystery man was but as I did my stomach jumped to my throat and leapt out of the bed towards the bathroom. As I washed off my face I realized there was something on my hand, and when I looked down I found a gold band on my right hand and my stomach jumped back into my throat.
“What’s going on?” I heard the voice of the mystery man coming from the other room and that’s when I realized I knew that voice, it was Patrick. I pulled myself together and went back to the room.
“You tell me.” I flashed the ring on my hand in front of him.
“Oh my god!” Patrick exclaimed after looking from my hand to his and seeing a matching ring on his hand. “What did we? How did we?”
“You mean you don’t know either?”
“No, of course not, you think I planned this? All I remember is buying you a few drinks last night and then agreeing to walk you home.”
“But we’re not home. I don’t even know where we are.” As I said this Patrick began looking around the room I wasn’t what he was looking for till he found it.

“We’re in Atlantic City, how in the world did we get here? Did I drive drunk?” He asked looking at a brochure he found in the end table beside the bed.
“Well, I wouldn’t put it past you. First you steal my job and now you’ve stolen my chance at the perfect wedding.”
“The perfect wedding?” he asked confused.
“Yes, every girl dreams of the perfect wedding and I am no exception I wanted a fairytale wedding, with the perfect dress, location and my perfect prince and obviously I didn’t get any of those things.”
“You do know that the “perfect wedding” doesn’t exist right?” he laughed
“You are such a guy.”
“Alright tell me about this perfect wedding that you had all thought up.”
“well first of all, it would not be in Atlantic City it would be in Disney World, I would have a Cinderella dress with my hair done and a prince charming who I was madly in love with, it would have been the perfect fairytale.” I looked over at Patrick to see him staring at me with a huge grin. “What?” I questioned.
“You’re kind of cute when you rant.”
“Excuse me?”
“Your cheeks get all flushed and your nostrils flare a little bit.” He laughed.
“They do not.’’ I covered my nose so he couldn’t make fun of it anymore but that just made him laugh even more. “Stop, it’s not funny.”
“You’re right I’m sorry. So wife, you want to go get breakfast?”
“Do not call me that! We have to get this annulled like now.”
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“Why? You don’t think we are a good match? Maybe we should try this out you never know maybe this was fate and we should see it through.”

“You’re kidding me right? We can’t stay together we’ve known each other for a little over 24 hours there’s no way this will ever work. You need to get the car and we need to go find someone to end this marriage.” I couldn’t believe that Patrick was suggesting we see this marriage through; he was dumber than I thought.

“Ok ok, we’ll get dressed and go find someone to fix this.”
We spent the day trying to piece together the events of the night before and as we did so I began to see who Patrick really was and unfortunately it was nothing like the picture I had painted of him in my head. He was sweet, funny, and a total gentlemen, and the kicker was he knew just as much about fashion as I did. We spent the day talking and laughing and at times I forgot what our mission for the day actually was. That was until we found the chapel we had tied the knot in.

“Aw, look Harry the two love birds from last night are back!” the woman at the counter exclaimed as we walked through the door. “Have you come to pick up the pictures?”
“There are pictures?” Patrick asked.
“No, we are here to see how we can get the marriage annulled.” I informed her before she could answer him.
“Annulled? But you two seemed so in love.”
“Yeah, well Vodka will do that to you.” I remarked.
“Well, I guess I can get you the papers.” The woman left the counter and went into the back of the chapel. I looked over at Patrick who was still quiet he seemed deep in thought.
“Are you ok?” I asked him
“Alyssa, I don’t want to do this.” He replied
“What? Why? It’s for the best.”
“Maybe the marriage isn’t the greatest idea and maybe we should get it annulled but why couldn’t we try this out, you and me I mean. When I met you yesterday there was something about you that made me smile. Even when you were attempting to blow me off and I could tell you felt it too when I grabbed for your arm. I think I could be your prince, if you let me.” I didn’t know what to say I mean he wasn’t wrong I had felt something when we met but I tried so hard to disguise it with hate, apparently I hadn’t done such a god job.

“Patrick, I don’t know this is all so fast we just met. Why would we even attempt it?” as I finished my statement Patrick pulled me into him and pressed his lips against mine and as we kissed everything just felt right. “Maybe this could work.” I said as I pulled away from Patrick, he cracked a proud smile.

“What do you say instead of getting these papers and going home, we catch a plane to Disney World.” Patrick suggested knowing I couldn’t refuse.
“You really are my prince.” I smiled and kissed him.