Krista Davis | Everyone Loves A Wedding

Writing about domestic divas, Sophie Winston and her rival, Natasha, is always fun, but for my most recent book, I had the pleasure of planning an entire wedding without having to pay for it. Weddings used to be somewhat uniform. We expected the frou-frou bridesmaids’ dresses that would never be worn again, with dyed to match shoes, no less. The white cake was topped with a plastic bridal couple or flowers, and after a reception or dinner with dancing, the happy couple left for their honeymoon.

Today, brides face a staggering variety of choices. Cakes are topped with rhinestone studded initials, if there is a cake. Cupcake tiers are all the rage as an alternative. And wedding festivities don’t necessarily end with dinner anymore. Some couples arrange for a lounge with dancing and go on to a brunch in their honor before taking off. I was shocked to learn that some brides buy two wedding dresses so they can change between the ceremony and the reception. Of course, a lounge and dancing necessitate a third dress.


In the Domestic Diva Mysteries, Sophie and Natasha write competing lifestyle advice columns. Their tips are included in the books, along with recipes. Sophie keeps things simple but elegant, while Natasha thinks everyone should craft their own wrapping paper, make their own wedding veils, and spend six months cultivating a topiary centerpiece for a luncheon. Their rivalry is a friendly one, though there is that little issue of Natasha taking up housekeeping with Sophie’s ex-husband. Sophie is okay with it, though, since she has a weakness for hunky Detective Wolf Fleishman.

Click to read the rest of Krista's blog, leave a comment or enter her blog contest.

Pamela Ford | How would you change your wedding?

I went to a wedding last weekend. The ceremony was lovely, the bride and groom, Dan and Lindsay, a striking couple very much in love, the reception elegant, the atmosphere festive. But, I got to wondering…if people could go back and do their wedding all over again, what would they change? Soon, I was asking the question out loud. Leaving out the jokester who replied, “I’d change the groom,” here are some of the answers I got.

Katie, who married three years ago, wishes she had videotaped the ceremony so she could see everything she missed as she waited in the back room and as she walked down the aisle, too filled with excitement to notice much.

Don, who married 55 years ago at the Carmel Mission in California, would go back and hire a professional photographer because the friend who took their pictures set the camera on the wrong speed and every picture was blurred.

Teri, married 17 years ago, wishes she’d bought a wedding dress off the rack instead of having hers made. The seamstress kept insisting the dress was almost done and when she finally let Teri try it on the day before the wedding, not only was it too big, but half the lace and the collar were missing. The next morning, the seamstress arrived with the dress unpressed, partially-fixed, and the hem falling out.

Which brings me to you. What would you change about your wedding if you could go back and do it all over again?

Weddings are at the center of my new book, THE WEDDING HEIRESS, which got 4-1/2 stars from Romantic Times BOOKreviews. Delaney is an upwardly mobile career woman who doesn't believe in happily ever after – even when she has to return to her hometown to plan weddings in order to get her inheritance. Going home brings her back in contact with Mike Connery, the girlhood crush she's never gotten over. Good thing Mike doesn't believe in happily ever after either. Or does he?

I’m celebrating the release with two contests – the first runs from October 15-31; the second from November 1-15. Stop by my website www.pamelaford.net/, read the excerpt and enter to win.

Now, don’t forget to take a moment and tell us about how you would change your own wedding!

Pamela Ford

www.pamelaford.net/

pamelaford@pamelaford.net

Shirley Hailstock | Weddings!

The word brings up images of a blushing bride, a nervous, tuxedo-clad groom and joyful tears in the eyes of family and friends. Months, maybe years, of planning have gone into the single most important day in the lives of two happy people.

I love weddings. At one time I thought I wanted to spend my life in the arena of gowns and people with smiles and happy tears. But, as life would have it, it didn’t work out and I went on to other pursuits – writing. When I look back, I don’t regret it. I have been able to be many people. Like Charlton Heston once said, "I've been president of the United States three times, and chancellor of England, and I ran the French government. And I led the Jews out of Egypt. What more could I want?”

What more could I want except to be a writer, to live the lives of presidents, first ladies, cops, models, lawyers, doctors, architects, and everyone in between. I have flown planes and helicopters, worked with FBI and CIA agents, owned a ranch and held a secret baby. I’ve saved the lives of a presidential candidate, been the granddaughter of a supreme court justice and that’s just the tune up. I have miles to go and many other lives to live.

This is how the story in Wrong Dress, Right Guy came to me. Actually Cinnamon’s and her sister, Samara’s, names came to me first. Samara has her own book and it will be out in June 2009. Wrong Dress, Right Guy is Cinnamon’s story (released June 2008). I used to work in a bridal shop. We didn’t deliver so there was no chance of mixing up the gowns. But there was a woman who came in and she chose what I considered the wrong gown for her size and height. When I thought of writing a wedding book, that woman came back to me and I thought what fun it would be to write about a woman who got a wedding gown when she expected a ball gown. Of course, Cinnamon and the real life bride have nothing in common, except the idea of a dress.

Cinnamon is a woman with a sense of humor, about everything except her brain. That she takes seriously. She’s beautiful and being the butt of “weather girl” jokes was not her idea of a life’s profession. So she chucked her job in Boston and moved into her grandmother’s house in Northern Virginia, a stone’s throw from the nation’s capital.

Of course, there is a stone she can’t throw and that’s MacKenzie Grier. Mac is all business and anger, especially when he discovered Cinnamon wearing his sister’s wedding gown. From their first meeting the errors just keep coming. The town gets into the act, offering Cinnamon all the trappings for her wedding; from the cake to invitations to her own wedding gown. All she needs is a groom and the town has chosen Mac for the job.

It’s June, the perfect month for a wedding. For all the brides out there, I hope your wedding day is beautiful – whatever the month. While Cinnamon got the wrong dress, she got the right guy. And your right guy is waiting nervously for you in his tuxedo.