Say Yes To the Dress
I’ve written several weddings into my Konigsburg books, but the question of bridesmaid dresses never really came up. In Wedding Bell Blues, the heroine had a gorgeous bridesmaid dress. In Don’t Forget Me, the bride decided not to have the bridesmaids wear matching dresses because they weren’t exactly a matched set. But then came Bolted, and the Bridesmaid Dress From Hell.
The wedding situation in Bolted is a little unusual. The bride herself is sort of distracted by family pressures and other things (Erin Nicholas will spell it all out in Hitched, which features the bride as the heroine). At any rate, she passes on the responsibility for choosing the bridesmaids’ dresses to her cousin Bernice. And Bernice turns out to have a serious Gone With the Wind fixation.
Thus Greta, the matron of honor, finds herself in a dress that’s sort of reminiscent of the barbecue at Tara. It involves crinolines and sashes and ruffles and everything that makes the average bridesmaid’s heart drop to her shoes. And on top of everything else, the bride is swept away by a former boyfriend before the wedding can take place.
Greta is also the groom’s sister, so her mother isn’t exactly in the right frame of mind to hear Greta’s news about her own recent divorce. So Greta decides to go for a drive, Gone With the Wind dress and all.
What happens next leads to Greta taking a week-long vacation from wedding disasters and responsibility. With only the ghastly clothes on her back, she becomes the chef at the Hotel Grand and the lover of the hunky archaeologist she’s rescued from his own dig.
So yes, Greta’s dress is pretty awful, and she has every reason to be depressed about it. But by the end of the story, even Greta has to admit—the dress has some magical qualities after all.
Here’s the blurb for Bolted:
Sometimes you have to get lost before you can find yourself.
The Promise Harbor Wedding, Book 2
Greta Brewster McBain in a bind. Two, if she’s really counting. First there’s the can-barely-breathe, bridesmaid’s dress from hell. Second, the stranger who just carried her “perfect” brother’s fiancée out the church door has made it impossible to tell her own mother about her own divorce.
Rather than confirm her reputation as the family screw-up, Greta takes a drive to clear her head.
Trapped in a hole and unable to reach his cell phone, Hank Mitchell is resigned to becoming a permanent part of his own archeological dig when help arrives—in the form of a woman who looks like a Gone With The Wind refugee. Behind the ruffles and lace, though, is something he appreciates: a woman who isn’t afraid of a little dirt.
Their instant connection draws Greta into the eccentric world of the Hotel Grand, where she impulsively trades her hoopskirts for an apron. Soon things are getting hot, not only in the hotel kitchen, but in Hank’s arms...
Warning: Contains hot moonlit sex, a melancholy turtle, two wisecracking seniors, and the world’s ugliest bridesmaid dress.
