Offer To The CEO

Saturday, continued …

After they had exited the church, their wedding party and guests started to follow them out from the church. They all had to come over and congratulate Hou Yi and Anna not only on the ceremony but on the news delivered last night.

Anna was on tender-hooks worried that her mother would start to overreact outside the church. Alecia and James' threat along with Georgina and Adam and Ben's maternal grandparents had kept her under control so far. Glancing at her mother, Anna seeing the look on Meredith Jones' face told Anna how unimpressed she was about this ceremony and Anna's choice.

Hou Yi, followed the eyes of his wife and noticed that they were on her mother. He leant over and quietly whispered to Anna "Sweetheart, do not worry. If she cannot be happy for us, they she is not worth worrying about."

"Yi, she is my mother…"

After quickly sealing her lips with a brief kiss Hou Yi said "Anna, she has made her position very clear. She wants what she wants and today of all days do not worry about her. Let us just focus on us, an enjoy the day."

Anna looked into Hou Yi's eyes and simply nodded. While they were accepting people's congratulations, their photographer was wandering through the crowd taking a number of photographs. Eventually he started to take control of the scene to take photographs at the church with their families, friends and guests. It was obvious for Anna looking at no only their bodyguards but those of the other guests and the security staff engaged for the day were all quite nervous.

Once the photographers were satisfied with the photographs at the church the wedding party and their immediate family headed towards the botanical gardens for the first of their two post ceremony photo shoots. The photographers had done their pre-wedding scouting, and had the perfect places already scoped out for the photos to be taken, including in the bandstand and at the lake's edge.

The only thing that kept grating on Anna's nerves was that Adam, Wayne and Ben were complaining as they were missing watching the AFL game on television.

When James heard that whining, he turned and responded, "Suck it up princesses, it is only one game and if we all know you, you will be watching repeat after repeat of the game, depending on the result."

Ben fired back "But we are missing out on the fun of watching the game"

Anna, knowing how this argument would likely end up, decided that she had to speak "Damn it you three, I bet your wives how long it would be before this happened, and guess who won. I will give you once chance before I decided to enforce the outcome …"

Ben and Adam, knowing the potential turned to Rosemary and Rebecca, who just had a smirk on their faces, before Anna continued "Which is that each of you will have to run along the breakwater in your underwear. I figured a nudie run might be too embarrassing, so …'

Ben could only try and hide his face, and Wayne had to respond "You, You …"

"Well I did tell everyone I did not want my day ruined and there would be consequences."

Meanwhile, Amanda and Yao Tan were looking confused at the exchange, and Hou Yi, Alecia and James quietly explained to them what was being talked about. Alecia, having only learnt in the last couple of months about the usual outcomes of bets within Anna's family, a nudie or underwear run, when she poorly made one simple bet, so she had already sworn off them. There was no way that she was going to tell her father about that, as he would hit the roof.

When the bickering finished the photographer completed the last of photographs in the gardens as another two wedding parties arrived for their photographs before they headed to Flagstaff Hill for a few photographs that Hou Yi was determined to have there. Ever since the day he walked around on the day they told Anna's family or their marriage, he had imagined photographs of Anna as a bride outside the small chapel there, and he was determined to have them. Thank goodness the weather was cooperating.

Unlike the first photo shoot in the gardens, this was a much simpler shoot, and after another thirty minutes there they had finished and headed back to the accommodation for pre-dinner drinks with their guests before the reception, which ran long into the night.