The Nihill-Rider wedding

Round 27: Spring 2026
Steve Rider is 31 and Olivia Nihill is 29.

It's 4:40am and there are several hours before Steve and Olivia's wedding. Steve is still sound asleep but Olivia is already up and ready to go.

She's not nervous, just excited. And a little inspired. Might as well take advantage of the quiet.

Steve and Olivia were both worried about rain but when they get to Central Park, it looks like a gorgeous day.

Olivia had resigned herself to the likelihood that the wedding probably wouldn't be perfect but so far, it was shaping up pretty well. Everyone was even on time!

Well, Asha and Luc were cutting a little close (and looking pretty pleased with themselves for it too) but they made it!

Lia and Ione have been at the park for almost as long as the soon-to-be newly weds, to help with general preparations.

Groomsmen Gordon and Evan came along early too, though Gordon has spent most of his time complaining about how it's way too hot to be wearing a tux. Lia's been hearing it all morning and is silently praying he'll shut up.

The ceremony has begun though and Steve and Olivia are deaf to all the fussing.



It's important to Olivia to carry on her family name, so Steve has agreed to become a Nihill.

After the ceremony, Gordon seems like he's in a much better mood. Maybe it was all that praying from Lia.

He's not usually the whiny type and Lia's glad to see him back to his sweet self.

The bride's niece and flower girl, Jessica, sat next to Ione during the wedding and now has a new favourite person.


Jessica's parents, Max and Zaria, are just a few metres away. With any luck, Steve and Olivia will still be as in love with each other as Max and Zaria are, once they've been together for almost 25 years!

Really, they never stop!

Approximately 10 minutes into Olivia and Steve's marriage: so far so good!

Olivia is still mildly uncomfortable with the idea of her mother marrying another man. But it meant a lot to Caterina and Julian that she still wanted to include him in the wedding.

Caterina liked Steve the minute Olivia first brought him home. That was 9 years ago now, so she's thrilled for him to finally be officially a member of the family.

Max is keen to welcome his new brother-in-law to the family as well, and does so with a toast to the newlyweds.

Max isn't really an orator, nor is he as sentimental as Olivia...

...but the effort is very much appreciated.


After Max is done, the guests start clinking their glasses. Of course, they want to see a kiss from the newlyweds.

Steve and Olivia are only too happy to oblige!

Not that these two have ever needed any encouragement to engage themselves in a little PDA.

They're supposed to be greeting their guests and mingling but for most the day, Steve and Olivia have been glued to each other's sides.

They do occasionally manage to pry themselves apart to talk to other people. Olivia's cousin Owen is keen to offer his congratulations.

Owen's wife Naomi is something of a mentor to Olivia in her career. She was one of the few people permitted to see Olivia's gown before the big day.

Steve chats to Gordon, who is hopefully not regaling him with any more terrifying twin stories!

Max, a chef, made the cake himself to Olivia's specifications and from the looks of it, he's done a great job!

And it doesn't taste bad either!

Soon, everyone is enjoying the cake, except Naomi, who has inexplicably chosen salad instead. Maybe she's watching her figure?

And Tatiana and Jonas, who still act like newlyweds themselves, much of the time.

The success of their home study so far must have put Joanna in a great mood; she's being much more genial than usual!

Seriously, what's gotten into her? Or Kirstin, for that matter!

Seems like Joanna's crankiness has (hopefully temporarily) been passed on to Julian. Who knows what poor Asha said or did but Julian doesn't seem happy!

Sullivan's curmudgeon-in-training, Elspeth, has decided to gate crash this shindig! She is pissed that she wasn't invited to this wedding, so she's come to check it out for herself anyway.

Steve has zero idea who this girl even is, so while she rages, he stares at her blankly.

Elspeth being Elspeth, she doesn't much care what Steve has to say about things. She's just going to sit down and help herself to some gelatin.

Olivia is all too familiar with Elspeth and finds it's just best to let her be, as long as she's not getting into any trouble!


And so Elspeth is allowed to stay!

Meanwhile, Jessica has discovered the little bottle of bubble solution Olivia slipped into the pocket of her flower girl dress as a surprise. Weddings are not particularly exciting for kids, even if they did get to be flower girls, so Jessica is thrilled!

Ewww, that's not for drinking!

See? Now you've gone and made yourself sick!

That's it, just stick to making bubbles!

There's at least one person who was excited to see Elspeth at the wedding - Olivia's nephew, Josh. He might have just the tiniest crush on Elspeth.

Not that he's been game enough to say anything to her about it.

Now that everyone has finished lunch, the bride and groom share their first dance...

...and are soon joined by most of the other guests.

Most! Some guests would prefer to go around the tables and eat other people's leftovers.

Leftovers that have been sitting out in the sun for a couple of hours are, unsurprisingly, rather unappetising. So Jessica instead decides to go and nose around at what her brother is doing.

He's studiously ignoring her, is what he's doing. Jessica doesn't care if Josh and Elspeth won't listen to her. She'll just keep smiling, laughing and interrupting every now and then, hoping they'll include her.

Josh finally gets sick of his little sister and takes Elspeth to that most romantic of places- the patchy grass behind the toilet block.

They don't anything other than hold hands and look at each other goofily, so perhaps even if their parents did catch them, they wouldn't get into too much trouble!

Not that Olivia and Steve care about any of that!

They've loved every second of their wedding day and are looking forward to tonight's sort-of honeymoon.

Seeing they're saving for a house, Steve and Olivia have put off going away for a honeymoon and will be spending the night at the Vista, on Evan and Ione's recommendation.

They already had champagne in the limo ride to the hotel but seeing the staff have left a complimentary bottle in their room, why not have another glass?

They did just get married, after all!

There must be something in the water at this hotel! Evan and Ione left expecting their twins Justin and Xavier and now, Olivia and Steve will become parents in nine months' time! Baby Nihill is due in Winter 2027!

Wedding spam:
As usual, I went nuts with the posed pics after the wedding. I took twice as many as usual, because it was sunset at the time. Each picture has a sunset version and a regular daylight version - the sunset ones turned out too dark, so I'm glad I thought to do the daylight ones!

First time I've ever used the bouquet prop for wedding pictures! I didn't realise you could recolour them once the Sim is holding them but you can, so yay!

I'm playing around with layering poses and mixing poses from different boxes in the one picture. I think Olivia is using approximately 11 different poses here. ;) Not really, but quite probably three or four.

Mother of the bride, Caterina, with the newlyweds.

Olivia with her big brother Max. They actually look far more alike that I realised.

Olivia and bridesmaids Ione and Lia. Lia's baby bump is so cute!

I had meant to take a picture like this of Joanna and her nieces and nephew when she and Rose got married but I forgot. Remembered this time!

Steve with his groomsmen, Gordon and Evan. He's friends with Gordon through work and with Evan through Olivia's friendship with Ione.

And the whole bridal party!

Notes:

• I think this was probably my smoothest running wedding ever. No lags, no crashes, no weird headless Sims!
• I only just figured out what all that glass clinking was! The newlyweds kissing every time the guests clink their glasses thing has only happened at one wedding I've been to (mercifully, as it gets fairly irritating in real life!), so that's my defense! It's so cute in TS2 though!
• Okay, so I have no idea what trait decides whether the Sim will smush the cake in the other's face or feed it to them delicately with a fork. I thought it was a neat vs. sloppy thing but Olivia is a pretty big slob and she used the fork.
• I think it's really cute when non-Family Sims get wants to interact with relatives. I like to imagine they're thinking about marriages or babies - Olivia had a bunch of family wants when I loaded up their flat. So I guess it was only fitting that they tried for a baby the second they got the chance.
• Baby Nihill is on the way! I'm so excited! I'm hoping for a red head, which is a possibility - Olivia's grandfather Cedric had red hair and she carries a recessive gene for it. I think it'll be a cute kid either way but I'm kind of hoping for one that looks like Olivia, because my God! How cute was she? She looked a lot like her dad Ben, who was also an adorable toddler.
• Elspeth just wandered onto the lot and started sneering at Steve. Who knows what's up with that girl? As for Josh, I was expecting romance between these two but not so soon! I heard that "falling in love" music and looked around and saw them both with red and pink hearts floating above their heads. They were already BFFs, so it wouldn't have taken much. They haven't kissed yet, so it must have been a flirt or a hug that did it.