Chosen Bride of the Seven Dark Princes

Chapter 300 - The Cost Of It All

The days marched forward with relentless speed.

There were fittings that needed to be scheduled for all members of the family, excluding the Emperor and Mother Fatima.

There were also rehearsals that needed to be attended by everyone—again, excluding the Emperor and Mother Fatima.

The menus had to be chosen and approved.

Candace was in the middle of tasting and approving the menus, which consisted of breakfast, lunch, and dinner for all the guests on that day.

"Why do we have to provide so much food?" She frowned at one of the advisors during the tasting of smoked salmon.

"The guests are flying in from all over the galaxy, Princess. They cannot bring all the food and drinks they need so we have to provide food for them."

"Yes but breakfast, lunch, and dinner???"

The man nodded. "Most of them come from very far away. They will be spending at least one day here, if not more. You have to feed them all."

Candace had frowned at the budget for the sheer amount of food that was being ordered. The number looked huge. She had no idea how much that many jemals were, but she knew how much food was being calculated by the advisors.

"That's enough to feed an army."

"Yes, Milady. There has to be enough food to feed thousands of guests, including their entourage. You can't leave the guards and attendants hungry for a whole day."

"How are we going to pay for it all?" She gasped.

The advisors looked at each other. "Perhaps we could discuss this together with one of your husbands." They suggested.

"Wait a moment. Let me contact one of them."

She narrowed her gaze and threw a query into the mental space that connected her to the men.

'Anyone here?'

'What is it Darling?' Dante responded.

'Dante. I'm talking to one of the advisors about the cost of all this food for the wedding.'

'Hmm. Whatever it is, I'm sure it's fine, Darling."

'Dante, it's 500,000 jemals. I have no idea how much that is, but it sounds so excessive…'

'How much?' Dante asked again.

'The advisor said 500,000 jemals for one day's worth of food.'

'Does that include the alcoholic beverages?' Lucas chimed in.

'No.' She sobbed. 'That's a different tab.'

'Hmmm. We will need to figure out the cost of the wine and beer as well.' Lucas murmured.

'I have that taken cared of.' Slate came online.

'I went beer tasting the first day I got here, and then I took a detour to price out the wines as well. I got the prices down to the number I was happy with and it will be coming to the palace a day before the wedding.'

'Good job Slate.' Lucas said.

Dante paused for a moment, finishing off what he was doing with someone nearby. Then he gave Candace his full attention.

'I'll talk to the advisors about the food costs. You just keep tasting and picking out the foods you like the best and leave everything else to me.'

'Thank you Dante.'

She finished the salmon tasting and then it was onto the amount of desserts that had to be finalized.

"Fifty—fifty tiered cakes?" Candace had gasped. "But there are eight tiers for each cake. Who's going to eat that much cake?"

"Milady, each tier cake can only feed 120 people. Fifty cakes will be able to feed 6,000 people."

"We don't have that many people coming to the wedding." She gave him an evil eye.

"Milady, it's always good to have extra…"

"Halve that. I don't even think 3,000 people will be eating cake. Half the people there are men, and many of them don't even like to eat sweet things."

"Milady, twenty-five cakes may not be enough…"

"We also have fruit tarts, pies, eclairs, and ice cream. There is plenty of sweet stuff to go around. If there is not enough cake, cut the slices a bit smaller."

"Yes, Milady." They bowed their heads.

By the end of the day, Candace had gotten word from Leonardo that he had ordered all the flowers and decorations.

He had also engaged Poppy and Lyra to help him take over the job of being Flower Ladies and they had begun the process of creating floral charts for what types of flowers go where and what colors go with what.

With the two Princesses running around, assisted by their three 'fetch-and-carry' men, things began to move more quickly.

Several groups of attendants were creating huge sculptures out of tulle and satin and fresh flowers to be used as decorations around the stage area and the dance areas.

Meanwhile, large fabric drapes and decorations were being hung by the attendants all over the palace and the grounds.

Amidst all this craziness, the first of the dozen music bands began arriving with their equipment and entourage.

They had been called by Prince Lucas himself and were ecstatic that they would get backstage viewing of the most eagerly awaited wedding of the galaxy.

Candace did not even bother to ask Lucas how much each of those bands would cost. She had no idea what the budget was for entertainment.

In fact, she also had no idea how much all the wedding outfits and jewelry for the entire wedding party would be. Jason and Jared had taken that on without batting an eye.

Amidst all this frantic movement, the first of the visuals collecting pods began to appear.

When the visual pods first started showing up, Candace was not happy.

"Why are the visuals collecting pods showing up and following me around? I'm finished with all the Avgo Events!"

She had wailed at her husbands as they sat around the fire pit in the courtyard outside her bedroom suite, drinking spiced cider and toasting marshmallows.

"It's actually not something we can control." Slate sighed. "A royal wedding this grand is not something that can be kept completely private."

"He's right." Lucas shook his head. "If we don't allow the legitimate venues to come in and take care of the visuals, we can't control the quality of unauthorized visuals."

"But what's to stop the unauthorized visuals, even if we have the legit ones do the visuals?" Candace grimaced.

"You're burning your marshmallows Darling." Byron reached over and took her stick from her hand.

"The legitimate groups will do their own policing of the illegal stuff because they will want to be the exclusive sources for the visuals that get spread throughout the galaxy." Leonardo grinned.

Byron handed the marshmallows to her. "Here you go. Careful, it's hot."

"And of course, since the legitimate sources will be selling high-end advertising, we will be profiting from it all." Dante smiled.

"Profit?"

"Haha. Yes. Very profitable!" Jason grinned, his face looking evil and distorted from the flames flickering within the fire pit.

"What kind of profit are we talking about?" She blew on the marshmallow and ate a gooey piece.

"Enough profit so that they are footing the entire bill for the cost of our wedding." Jared announced smugly.

Candace's eyes widened.

"There is one drawback though." Lucas wrinkled his nose.

"What's that?"

"The old goat Lorem Ipsum is going to be the main announcer for the wedding." He informed with resignation as all the brothers moaned and covered their eyes.

Slate growled with dissatisfaction. "He'd better mind his Ps and Qs or his chin whiskers are mine again!"