The wedding shut down Ponyville and the countryside all around starting with the pancake breakfast Saturday morning. All four princesses and Discord got into a semi-friendly frying contest, too, their various forms of magic pumping out stacks and stacks of flapjacks for the hungry and cheering crowds. Still, Applejack was more'n a little surprised when Princess Celestia came up the winner.
Discord sniffed and said, "I always knew she had the heart of a short-order cook."
Luna laughed, poking her elder sister in the barrel. "Well, pancakes are a form of cake, are they not?"
The Wonderbolts did their fly over just as the breakfast was winding down. Nothing too fancy since the squadron was two flyers short with Rapidfire now cooling his hooves in a fourth-floor room at the Canterlot Correctional Treatment Facility, but the way it set Dash's eyes to wavering told Applejack it had been entirely worth arranging it.
Everypony wended their way out to the Acres after that, and the ceremony itself kicked off about noon. Twilight had spent the week before in gleeful research, digging up so many weird old pegasus and earth pony joining rituals that Applejack'd had no choice but to put a hoof down. "Short 'n' sweet's the name of the game, sugar cube. We don't want Dash falling asleep halfway through."
"Hey!" Dash had given her a glare before cocking her head and saying, "Yeah, y'know? That's probably exactly what'd happen."
As it was, there wasn't a dry eye in the house as her and Dash repeated the vows Twilight had found for them. Applejack got a little misty herself, looking at Rainbow with that simple wreath of laurel Rarity had woven around her temples, her face shining but oh, so serious as she said words Applejack hadn't ever dreamed she'd hear but now couldn't understand how she'd lived so long without.
Of course, when it was her turn, she couldn't hardly get her throat to work: twenty minutes it felt like she stood there hacking and coughing, but she finally squeezed the dang things out, her blush so big, it heated her up from forehead to fetlocks. And the party after that—
Lying in bed back at the Acres, Applejack stretched her ears, pretty sure she could still hear music drifting up the lane from all the way down in town square even though that was late Sunday afternoon sunlight shining through the curtains and dappling the carpet across the room.
Warmth stirred against her, and Applejack forget everything she'd ever known 'cept the pony curled along her side. Dash somehow wriggled closer, then opened her eyes. "Morning," she murmured.
Applejack had to snort. "Four or five hours ago maybe."
Dash snickered, her breath rustling Applejack's mane and making her shiver with a happiness deeper, she was pretty sure, than any she'd known in all her born days. "Yep, yep, yep," Dash was saying. "I'm thinking, though, that for our second date, we should prob'bly head up to Canterlot."
Every bit of warmth whisked away from Applejack, and she crooked her neck to look down at the ding-dang love of her life. "Really?" she asked.
"Well, yeah." Dash's grin made her head appear to have more teeth in it than any pony's ought rightly to have. "I mean, c'mon! What could possibly go wrong?"