Cliches, clashes, and cleverness under the Florentine sun - an ARC review of Kate Mathieson's The Wedding Date Disaster

Throughout reading Kate Mathieson’s The Wedding Date Disaster I couldn’t help but feel that I found myself in the midst of a Regency-era romance, albeit a modern one. The enemies to lovers trope is one of my favorites and, here ,the one between book editors Gemma Evans and Ben McDonald is equal parts expected and charming. Ben’s laidback Aussie attitude counters both his “radical honesty” (i.e. prickishness) and Emma’s uptight Englishness and inability to be anything other than trickly sweet to everybody except for him. From the moment he arrived at the workplace where's she’s spent most of her adult life and charmed literally everyone but her, he, in her estimation, has earned the moniker of “Weasel”. To add insult to injury, he nabs the senior editor position that she assumed would be hers. So, when Gemma needs a plus-one to her half-sister’s wedding in Italy (her dream destination) on the heels of losing the promotion AND being told by her longtime boyfriend, Adam, that he can’t come to the wedding because he’s got too many responsibilities back home in Sydney, she needs a fake boyfriend to take his place. Why, you ask? (But didn’t, really, because this is a rom-com and you just know she not only needs a fake date but will also fall for and end up with him by the end of the story.) Welp, Gemma’s family is, like any good rom-com secondary cast and origin of the heroine’s phobias, anxieties and whatnots, complicated. Complicated like her dad cheated on her mom, got his baby-momma pregnant, came home with both his new daughter and side-piece in tow and proceeded to live under the same roof as Gemma and her scorned mother. Fun!

Because of her desire to make her mother’s, and subsequently the rest of her “blended,” family’s lives as easy as possible, Gemma’s yes-woman personality was crafted at a young age. Imagine showing up at the wedding without her very real (albeit boring and kind of terrible) boyfriend Adam in tow? Pearl-clutching horror and shame! Thus, when Gemma arrives at the airport - in grey pajamas and slippers, no less - to meet her mystery date, she’s already not feeling it. When she has the stark realization, after security and ready to board, that it’s her nemesis, the real fun - for the reader, of course - begins. 

Ben, as any good rom-com leading man is, is more of a Greek god than not-so-humble executive. So, when they touch down in Florence and he meets Gemma’s twisted little family looking even tanner and buffer and everything-er by dint of her pj-clad rumpledness that’s only been amplified by travelling halfway around the world, they can’t help but wonder how "Adam" ended up with her. This, of course, provides more tension for the enemies but more laughs for the readers. To wit, one of my favorite lines: “My half-sister’s mother is about to do a soft porn with my pretend boyfriend!”

That Regency feeling is heightened by the ridiculousness of the festivities that Gemma’s half-sister bridezilla puts them through, thrusting the fake couple together into situations of forced proximity wherein uncomfortable feelings (mostly in their nether-regions) ensue. Like having to stand-in for the happy couple’s wedding shoot and (gulp) kiss to ensure the lighting’s right for the real thing. Or engaging in a very hands-on couple’s spa day. Every time Gemma tries to convince herself that she feels nothing for the man who’s suddenly less a weasel and more a charming, gorgeous, sincere, and walking example of competence porn - her own Darcy hand-flex as it were - we’re waiting even more impatiently for their inevitable end.  

Mathieson makes Gemma, and, by default, us, work for it, however. The breadcrumbs of Ben’s attraction - a forgotten meet-cute, the competitive workplace behavior that underlies a seemingly futile flirtation, and the obvious care with with he tends to Gemma when she falls ill - are so obvious we might as well be in a Hallmark flick. The humor that Mathieson imbues into these scenes, however, keeps me invested enough in a story that I’m just waiting to play out. Though it takes essentially the WHOLE. FRICKING. NOVEL for Gemma to come to see what we have the WHOLE. FRICKING. TIME, the payoff is ultimately sweet because Ben is superior to real Adam in every conceivable way. Despite the fact that Gemma’s assumptions about him from start to near-finish were callous and knee-jerk reactions to the honesty that she subconsciously wants to exhibit in her own life but can’t (until he teaches her how, that is), he does what every good rom-com hero does. He shows up. 

Gemma throws his kindness in his face? He shows up. She PERMANENTLY deletes the edits he’s painstakingly made to her novel that, granted, he didn’t ask for permission before reading or red-penning? He shows up. (Though, honestly, I might be Team Gemma here. Writing is personal and precious and her beloved book on Italy that her boss passed on has been a sore spot for her throughout the novel.) Accosted by her handsy pseudo-step-mother and harangued by the rest of the dysfunctional family? You guessed it. He shows up. In a tux. Looking like Aussie sex on stick. (Sex on the barbie?) 

Ultimately, there were those Hallmark moments that I found more saccharine than anything: the quick revelation between Gemma and her half-sister that she’s never hated her but (gasp!) thought she was perfect; the immediate ick she gets when she's honest with real Adam, who, by the by, couldn’t make it to the Italian wedding because he needed to clean his ceilings; Ben’s admission that she’s “rubbed off” on him and he wants to let others in but, for reasons I won't spoil, finds really difficult.  Yup, there were a lot of cliches to be had here. However, between Ben’s book-boyfriend qualities, the wit with which Mathieson incorporates into both of her leads, and the meta-nature of the writer / editor dynamic, there was just enough more to enjoy than not. 

Rating: 3 / 5 Budgie Smugglers