Matrimony meets mayhem in a modern British romcom about a young woman charged with pulling off the biggest aristocratic wedding of the year––and the misadventures that ensue. Intrigued? Read on to discover the synopsis and an excerpt before it releases on May 4th 2021 from St. Martin’s Griffin!
SYNOPSIS
Sophie Breeze is a brilliant bridesmaid. So brilliant, in fact, that she’s made it her full-time job.
As a professional bridesmaid, Sophie is hired by London brides to be their right-hand woman, posing as a friend but working behind the scenes to help plan the perfect wedding and ensure their big day goes off without a hitch. When she’s hired by Lady Victoria Swann––a former model and “It Girl” of 1970’s London; now the Marchioness of Meade––for the society wedding of the year, it should be a chance for Sophie to prove just how talented she is.
Of course, it’s not ideal that the bride, Lady Victoria’s daughter, Cordelia, is an absolute diva and determined to make Sophie’s life a nightmare. It’s also a bit inconvenient that Sophie finds herself drawn to Cordelia’s posh older brother, who is absolutely off limits. But when a rival society wedding is announced for the very same day, things start to get…well, complicated.
Can Sophie pull off the biggest challenge of her career––execute a high-profile gala for four hundred and fifty guests in record time, win over a reluctant bride, and catch the eye of handsome Lord Swann––all while keeping her true identity a secret, and her dignity intact?
EXCERPT
The Monday morning after Michelle and Harrison’s wedding, I stroll into my office (OK, it’s not really an office, it’s a tiny cup- board room in my South London flat with a desk in it, but what- ever) and turn on my laptop to find 534 unread emails waiting for me since I checked last night.
This isn’t unusual. I’m not just in touch with the bride and groom for each wedding, but also various family members, sup- pliers, and venues.
Still. I’m going to need another coffee.
I wander back from my office (OK, fine, cupboard) into the kitchen and put the kettle on. While I wait for it to boil, I smooth the pink blouse I’m wearing for work today. Even though I’m self- employed, I always prepare for work just as I did when I worked as a personal assistant in the City. I get up at six, shower, do my makeup, and pick an office-appropriate outfit.
Cara always makes fun of me for doing this—“Just work from home in your pajamas like a normal person”—but I never know when I’ll have to rush out for emergency meetings. For example, the other day I was in the middle of trying to book a quaint cottage in the countryside for a client’s hen do when I got an urgent call from a bride asking if I could come straight- away to speak to her father, who had fallen out with her over the guest list. I had to rush out of the flat and get there before all hell broke loose. I’ve witnessed huge family fallouts over the guest list, and it was crucial I arrived before anyone said something they regretted.
Luckily, I got there just in time to calm the situation and encourage a compromise: the guest list would include Nick and Sarah, the father of the bride’s neighbors, whom the bride had never met, but we couldn’t extend the invitation to his entire Friday Wine Club. The members would, however, be invited to the Sunday BBQ.
Father and bride are, happily, still talking to each other.
But they might not have been if I’d arrived a few minutes later, having had to change out of my pajamas before leaving.
Cara is the only person who knows my real job, aside from my parents and, of course, the clients. To everyone else, I’m a PA for some finance office in the City. I can’t risk anyone else finding out because it would ruin one of my biggest selling points: no one needs to know I’ve been hired to be there. This is strangely appealing to a lot of brides and their families—they don’t want anyone thinking they can’t handle organizing their big day.
A large part of my job is learning everything I need to know about the bride to convince the guests and, more often than not, the bridal party that we’re the best of friends and there’s a very good reason they’ve never heard of me before—I’ve been living in the rain forests of Guatemala for the past five years or I’m in the Witness Protection Program.
Yeah, I know. I’ve gotten creative.
The kettle clicks and I make my coffee, thinking about everything I need to do today, which includes calling the string quartet performing at the wedding next weekend and asking them to please remove Kanye West’s “Gold Digger” from the pro- posed set list they sent me (really, guys? really?). As I stir in the milk, I hear the post arrive, and, taking my mug, I go to pick it up and bring it into my office, plonking it on my desk and myself in my chair, ready to tackle those emails.
But something in the pile of letters catches my eye: an expensive-looking, thick cream envelope with my name written across it in elegant calligraphy.
If anyone can recognize a wedding invitation, it’s me.
The thing is, I already have the wedding invitations I’m ex- pecting from my personal life. I don’t know anyone else getting married. Intrigued, I pick it up, admiring the style of the enve- lope and the neat wax seal on the back. My heart does a little flutter at how gorgeous it is.
Uh-oh. Am I potentially turned on by this exquisite stationery? “I need to go on a date with a human,” I say aloud to no one. Opening the envelope, I pull out the gilt-edged invitation. As
I read the names of the happy couple, any good feelings I woke up with vanish in an instant.
