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Anya nibbled at her piece of wedding cake, frowned and set it down. She couldn't understand the attraction of burnt dried fruit herself, but it was traditional, and humans were big on tradition. Especially when it came to weddings.
Take this first dance business, for instance. Who knew that dusting a vampire during it was part of the ritual? The wedding etiquette books didn't mention it. Obviously, they needed updating.
There was a collective gasp from the guests. A chair sailed through the air and landed with a crash, to be followed by a body, and Spike's voice: "Stand still while my missis dusts you, tosser!"
Anya glanced sidelong at Xander, who was bouncing in his chair and sort of play-boxing the air in front of him.
"Go, Buf!" Xander muttered under his breath.
Anya rolled her eyes and turned back to the action, in time to see Buffy, whose wedding dress was looking more than a tad dishevelled, plant one dainty, slipper-clad foot in the unfortunate vampire's butt and kick him into the air like a soccer ball.
"Hey!" the vampire yelled, as he landed with a thud equidistant between Buffy and Spike. "Tag team slaying. No fair!"
"It's perfectly fair," Buffy snapped. "Besides, you started it, being all snarky. It's our first dance as a couple and you were spoiling it with your sniggering."
"Sure, I get that," the vampire whined. "But Wind Beneath My Wings? Seriously?"
"O-kay, that does it." Buffy's arm went up and came down again, and there was an explosion of choking dust.
Anya watched, frowning in concentration –she needed to get it right when her turn came -as Buffy set her hands on her hips and glared challengingly at the fangier members of the wedding party. "Anyone else wanna complain about my choice of music?"
Yellow eyes exchanged worried glances. There was a chorus of, "No way," and "No, ma'am, Slayer ma'am!" from all around the room.
"Well, good." Buffy snapped her fingers at the DJ to resume the music, and held out her hand to Spike. A moment later they were both pogo-ing – so Xander said it was called – to some sort of raucous howling about anarchy in Britain, which it seemed Spike had requested.
Anya wasn't sure she understood this part, but apparently marriage was all about compromise, or so people kept saying.
But before you could have a marriage, you had to have a wedding, and from the look of it, weddings were more complicated than she'd ever imagined.
Anya gave Xander a speculative glance – he looked very handsome in his tux, she was looking forward to some role-play when they had sex later, not to mention the real thing. Slipping a notebook and pencil out of her purse, she flipped to a page near the end headed Wedding, underlined heavily in black, and wrote: first dance accompanied by ritual vampire dusting.
Her list was getting longer, but then Buffy's wedding was going to be a hard act to follow.