Received an ARC from NetGalley for an honest review.

This was so cute! I love that we didn't have to wait long for Drew and Alexa to meet and were able to jump right into the story. I liked that we saw them navigating some tricky situations, both because of the ruse they'd created and because they were a mixed-race couple. It combined light moments with heavier ones which I really appreciated. The love scenes are fade-to-black and, while I would have liked to see how Jasmine writes a spicy scene, I liked that it kept the story moving. The conflict was absolutely realistic and I felt myself getting a bit emotional.

I do now own all of the books in this series, so I feel a binge coming on...

Well, this was just lovely. Everything I wanted from a romance novel and MORE. Immediate purchase for the library.

Cute, fun, and flirty - will be recommending to library patrons looking for an escape into a modern romance!

A great debut, but I wasn't in love with the storyline. It seemed a bit stagnant and dull at times. I started off strong with a unique meet-cute, but it started to fall into a predictable pattern after the relationship develops. I have tried another book by this author, but had similar feelings, so I am sure it is an 'it's not you, it's me' situation.

I loved this book. I really thought the lead couple were perfect together, and I liked how richly fashioned the world around them was. It reminded me of Julie James and Victoria Dahl.

On her way to a celebratory evening with her sister, Alexa Monroe gets stuck in the hotel elevator with the rather attractive Drew Nichols. Their harmless flirting turns into Alexa's promise to attend not only the wedding of Drew's ex-girlfriend, but also the rehearsal dinner the night before. What could it hurt, Alexa wonders. A fake date quickly turns into a fake boyfriend/girlfriend situation.

There is no denying the chemistry between Alexa and Drew, both physically and otherwise. They feel at ease with each other and enjoy spending time with one another. They had planned for their date to only last the weekend of the wedding, but neither is quite ready to say goodbye when the time comes. The only catch? Alexa lives in Berkeley where she works as the mayor's chief of staff and Drew is a pediatrician in Los Angeles. Where there is a will, there is a way, and thanks to frequent flyer miles and probably hefty savings accounts, the two take turns flying back and forth to visit with each other on the occasional weekends.

As their feelings grow for each other, they both know they must end their relationship before they get too attached. For Alexa, it is the fear of falling in love and wanting more than Drew is willing to give. He made it clear he wasn't relationship material right from the start. For Drew, he does not want to break Alexa's heart, knowing that is exactly what will happen if they continue to see each other.

It's a common trope, sure, but the characters and the magic Jasmine Guillory works to tell their story is what makes this such an entertaining romance. I found Alexa to be an extremely relatable character. I loved her charm and dedication to her work. She's clearly a smart and capable woman. Drew is easy to like as well. They both have some great supportive friends too who not only call them out when necessary but also comfort them when they most need it.

I appreciated the side stories that each character was struggling with and how they came together for each other, whether it was the diagnosis of one of Drew's young patients and how to help the boy's mother or Alexa wanting to start a project for helping at-risk teens (we need more programs like this!).

I also really liked how Jasmine Guillory approached the interracial relationship aspects of the novel. Romance novels are expected to have that Happily Ever After or For Now ending, but it does not mean they cannot tackle more serious topics. The author does not beat anyone over the head with the challenges a couple might face, merely a mention here or there in a very natural-to-the-novel way. As simple as Alexa asking Drew if she will be the only Black person in the room, for example, or having that conversation about privilege in terms of how a Black teen is treated compared to a White teen in the same situation. These are conversations we need to see and engage in more.

After reading Royal Holiday, the 4th book in the series last year, I was not expecting as many bedroom scenes as there were in The Wedding Date, admittedly. The Royal Holiday wasn't without, mind you, but it was significantly less in that regard. Not that I am complaining. Two different novels. Four very different characters.

I am always curious as to how long distance relationships in romance novels will be resolved in the end. Who will have to give up what? I know, I know. It isn't about what they are leaving behind but rather what they are gaining. My mind still goes there though. I am happy to say The Wedding Date had a very satisfactory ending in that regard.

Overall, I found The Wedding Date to be a delight to read. I was smiling just about the entire time I was reading it. Except maybe when I was crying in the sadder moments. I look forward to reading the next book in the series.

I. Love. This. Book. Guillory's explosion into the world of romance is a welcome one. With strong, sex positive females and strong social justice ideas reflecting on Guillory's past as a lawyer, this is a romance book that will be timeless and also a strong reflection of the time we are living in. I read this in one sitting. 5 stars is not enough.

Cute and funny and romantic. This was an easy read and one that had some of my fave tropes and takes the time to actually build these two characters into real, flawed but realistic, characters.

***This ARC was provided by netgalley for a honest review***

So so good! The fake relationship to a real one is one of my favorite romance scenarios. Alexa Is smart, gorgeous, loving and kind. She works for the mayor of Berkeley and she’s working on starting a program for underprivileged youth in their community. Drew is a pediatric surgeon from LA. They meet in an odd way by being stuck in an elevator together. Drew realizes that Alexa might just make the perfect wedding date to the wedding that he’s dreading.
Of course Alexa and Drew have more fun than they ever could imagine and it lasts all weekend long. Drew already told Alexa that he doesn’t do girlfriends so she’s not expecting much after he returns home to LA but they can’t stop thinking about each other. Both want nothing more than to be together even as both of their jobs keep them very busy. They start trading visit and can’t keep their hands off each other. They enjoy the simple pleasures of being together. The question becomes can they keep this pattern up? Can they keep trading flying back and forth with their busy lives in different cities?

This was a fine debut novel through the book itself felt clunky to me. While I liked Alexa and Drew, I felt like there wasn't enough pushing the plot forward. Also, all the food consumption got to be a little much.

Love the meet cute! Perfect book
To read when you are single or coupled up. Hopeful. Fun. Romantic

The Wedding Date started the trend for amazing, diverse romances, and there's a good reason. It takes a funny romantic trope - forced proximity - and adds in really smart, strong characters with pre-established careers, realistic conflict/tensions, and a whole lot of heat to create an incredible read. I'm very thankful for the opportunity to have read this (even if my review is VERY late) and have recommended it often in the last few years.

This book started off as a fake-dating trope, but then turned into an off-the-bat love story. This was a fast read. I enjoyed how the author made the characters relatable. She also touched on subjects of long distance and interracial relationships. I think folks will appreciate this romance novel.

I tried this as an audiobook and I think either that wasn't the right format or it just isn't for me. I didn't feel the audio narrator added much emotion to the story, so the whole thing left me feeling flat. I may give it another shot in print but for now the writing style may not be my preference.

You know how I’ve been complaining that I want more diversity in my romance? Well listen, I’m going to try to stop complaining and start reading the good stuff. And (aside from Alisha Rai, whom I also love and will continue to read voraciously) I knew the place to start was with Jasmine Guillory. I figure I can dip into the fluffy contemporary romances with her and then move on to some other authors who have been writing diversely for years (paging Alyssa Cole and Beverly Jenkins, among others). So I finally did it – I picked up The Wedding Date. And OH MY GOD why did I wait so long???

In The Wedding Date, Drew Nichols and Alexa Monroe get stuck in an elevator at a swanky hotel in San Francisco by chance. Drew is in town from LA for his med school friend’s wedding… who also happens to be marrying his ex-girlfriend, and Alexa came over from Berkeley to celebrate her sister’s promotion to partner at a law firm. But the power goes out, and Drew and Alexa are trapped together in this elevator. They’re immediately attracted to each other, which seems crazy. But then Drew starts telling Alexa the details of the wedding, and she finds him charming… and maybe a little desperate to not face the wedding by himself. Once they’re out of the elevator, he spontaneously asks her to be his date to the wedding, and she accepts.

Which turns into her pretending to be his fake girlfriend. Which leads to some very real attraction and a steamy night, post wedding reception. And then, they part ways, as planned.

Except neither of them can stop thinking about the other. For a woman who is married to her job and a man who swears he hasn’t had a girlfriend since his ex who just got married… that makes things a little… complicated.

wedding date

3 Things I Loved
Alexa. Oh man, Alexa is just the protagonist I wanted and needed, after reading a LOT of romance in the past couple of months. (Not that I’m complaining.) She’s shy and unsure of herself romantically, but she kicks ass at her job. She is self-conscious of her body, but it doesn’t bleed into her professional life. She’s a real person, someone I’d want to be friends with. More on that in a minute.
Drew. Now, spoiler alert – I read The Proposal before I read The Wedding Date, so I already knew and loved Drew as a side character before starting this book. So I went into it expecting a sexy doctor with a tight network of friends who had a decent sense of humor. What I didn’t expect was that he’s a reformed playboy who would have gotten eaten alive at this wedding without Alexa there, and I WAS HERE FOR IT. I loved him from the very first elevator scene.
Real people with real jobs! So, listen! I loved Alisha Rai’s latest [read my review of The Right Swipe here!], but they weren’t real people with real jobs to me. A CEO of a dating app? A former NFL star? Not super relatable, honestly. But a lawyer who decided to become chief of staff for the local mayor? A pediatric surgeon? Still not jobs I have, but relatable! Jobs that they worked really hard for and earned. And that made me love them all the more.
Dislikes/Problematic Content
Omg, come on. There’s hardly anything here. I loved every piece of this book, but I ESPECIALLY loved how directly race is addressed. Before walking into the rehearsal dinner, Alexa asks Drew if she’s going to be the only black person there, and he has to think about it and is distinctly uncomfortable. At the wedding, another groomsman is being racist and gross, and WE DEAL WITH IT ON THE PAGE. It was refreshing and real. This is why we NEED #ownvoices. I could write a black character, but I wouldn’t know those nuances. But now that I’ve read them… OF COURSE. Of course that’s something people deal with on a daily basis. Of course.

I will say, though – it seems like pretty much everything in the book is heteronormative, which is an easy trap to fall into when writing about weddings. The racial diversity mostly makes up for it, but that piece of real life could be added to make a more complete world, you know?

Oh, and a VERY SMALL aside – I didn’t love the “mean girl” aspect of the bridesmaids at the wedding. I understand their quibbles with Drew, truly – he did Molly wrong, back in the day. But I just don’t love the “girls are mean to other girls over a man” thing that was happening there.

Rating
A reminder of the rating scale:

Red = DNF, I hated everything
Orange = Ugh, no thank you
Yellow = I mean, I’ve read worse, but there were problems
Green = This was good!
Blue = Oh my gosh, I loved this book!
Purple = This is the unicorn of books and I will be rereading it until the binding falls apart and EVERYONE should be reading it!
This was one of the most fun romances I’ve read in a long time. And it’s not overly sexy (which I also love, but the details aren’t always needed on the page to know what’s happening), making it more accessible to people who may not always read romance. It’s truly a gem of a book! Therefore, I’m giving The Wedding Date a BLUE rating. SO GOOD.

Happy reading!

This was mega cute. A little corny at times, but honestly what new adult romance isn’t a little corny at times? Would definitely recommend for someone looking for a fast and fun read set in the Bay Area!

I love, love, love Jasmine Guillory. After I read this book, I bought the paperback. I really enjoyed the romance, the characters, the dialogue, basically everything!
4.5 stars rounded up

I will not be posting a review on goodreads because I was unable to enjoy this book and do not feel comfortable leaving a negative review.

I just loved this story! When Alexa gets stranded in an elevator on the way to celebrate with her sister a man is there extremely good looking man. He is trying to talk her into sharing her cheese and crackers but she relents and gives him a bit and the have a great time. When all is said and done he asked her to be his date for his ex girlfriends wedding and he also said he doesn’t date women long.
Drew is happy to have found someone to go with but he doesn’t realize Alexa is the only black woman there. Alexa is so easy going she goes with the flow which puts Drew at ease. They have such a good time they begin to see each other every weekend but they both know the end is coming.
The story is funny and insightful and make you realize how quickly words are misinterpreted but I just loved reading how Drew and Alexa fit in each other’s world.

Love has its ups and downs, but in Jasmine Guillory's debut novel The Wedding Date, that takes on a literal layer. Alexa, a petite, curvy, black lawyer who works as a mayor's chief of staff, and Drew, a tall, tight-abbed, white doctor who works with kids, meet cute in a stalled elevator when he's in town for his ex-girlfriend's wedding. He's cute enough that Alexa is willing to share her stash of purse snacks with him while they await rescue, but both of them are a little more guarded when it comes to their hearts.

It's a warm, delicious (seriously—there is so much food in this book), engaging story that doesn't shy away from issues of body image, race, and justice. Guillory, a longtime fan of the romance genre, is a lawyer, herself, and she made time on her packed docket to talk with Extra Crispy about career balance, writing realistic characters, and the importance of really good toast.


Extra Crispy: Congratulations on your first book! That's an incredible accomplishment, especially considering that you have a full-fledged other career. How did you make the time for writing, and did you have any rituals?

Jasmine Guillory: I have a full-time job so I usually write at night from 9 to 11. Sometimes on the weekends I'll do afternoons. I can wake up early in the morning to do business-related stuff, but I just don't have fiction in my mind in the morning.

I usually don't eat snacks while I write because I am too messy for that and I would get things all over my computer. Honestly I know this is terrible for my posture, but I usually write in bed. I don't want to get snacks all over my bed. I often eat snacks after I've finished writing because I write about food a lot and I make myself hungry.

One of the many things that I love about this book is that it's so snacks-forward.
There is definitely a lot of snacking truth in there, but the main character of my book, Alexa, has much more of a sweet tooth than I do. I love baking and making sweets but I'm satisfied very quickly. I can take a few bites of something and be totally happy that I had it and then not have that anymore. Whereas like a box of Cheez-Its is just gone in a day. I'm much more of like a savory snacker than she is.

Have you always been a fan of the romance genre?
When I was a teenager I went through a period of reading romances, but I hadn't read any romance novels for probably at least ten years. Then I had a pretty big surgery and during the recovery I started reading a bunch of romance novels. My gateway drug was Georgette Heyer's Regency books. Then I moved into current historical romances, still set in that time period. I was reading them obsessively. A few years before that I started writing fiction, but mostly young adult. So I was reading all these romances and thinking love reading them but I could never write one. Then I started reading more contemporary books. Then I was like maybe I could write one.

In those Regency books, there is an overwhelming whiteness. One of the best and most real things about your book is that you talk very matter-of-factly about race. The two lead characters are of different races, and Alexa, a black woman, opens up the eyes of Drew, a white man, about her lived experience—especially around groups of strangers.
It didn't feel real to me to not have race be an element of their life. When you're writing stories in present day and about people of color, race is always part of life. You live life going to a party and wondering "Am I the only black person here?" Especially if it's people you don't know. Or just assholes saying random things occasionally. Because you live life that way, they aren't a big deal because it's something you get used to. But it's also something that it would not feel real for me to write a story and ignore that.

Like most of us, Alexa has a complex relationship with her body and constantly critiques it, but because this book alternates between the two lead characters' points of view, we also see that Drew is all: "Hi. She's so pretty. Boobs." How did you decide on that structure?
It is hard to grow up as a woman and not criticize your body internally no matter what you look like. One thing that drives me crazy in some books is when the women look at themselves in the mirror, constantly praising their bodies. I'm sure those women exist. Obviously I don't think women should criticize their bodies. But it is a thing that we do. We compare ourselves to our friends or the other women that we see. And I don't want women to criticize themselves for the amount that we criticize. But I think there's just a lot of wistfulness sometimes like, "I wish I could wear that dress. I wish my boobs looked as good in something like that. I wish I could walk around without a bra."

One thing that wasn't in question is that they're both really good at what they do professionally. She's a lawyer who is highly placed in the mayor's office. He's a doctor. There's a meeting of power, rather than her being swept away by the billionaire, as happens in so many romances.
One of the things that made me start thinking about writing a book is that most of them didn't reflect the reality I see. My friends who are in relationships have careers that they care about and they are dating people with careers that they care about. It's not that one person has some sort of thing that they don't care about and then they're swept away by the rich person. Both people have a vocation and that's something I wanted to see reflected in more books.

You also bring in an interesting perspective because you are a person with a big job, yourself. How did you balance that—or at least try to?
I have a second book coming out sometime at the end of next year. There was definitely a lot that just fell by the wayside in my life. I would come home and write at night every night and then as I got toward my deadline, I had a lot of friends who I was like, "I cannot to out to dinner, I'm working!" My apartment got messy. I ordered in a lot of takeout. I sent all of my laundry out.

But then I take breaks after the draft is done or I send something in. Those breaks are really important to me as a creative person and just as a human being.

Let's talk about the weird stuff that happens at weddings. Nobody's psychologically correct at a wedding and everybody's working out their issues.
Nobody's themselves at a wedding—sometimes in a good way. There's something weird about an event where so many people from different parts of your life are together. At a wedding it's your family, people you went to elementary school with, people you've worked in five different jobs with. They wouldn't normally interact and mostly everyone is all dressed up. Usually there's something weird they make you do.

Everyone's parents expect something different. Society tells you that you have to do it like this or that or the other. You assume that you have to because the magazine says so. You have to put these forks there. There's so much weird stuff that goes into a wedding. Including plenty of alcohol and gossip.

By law, I have to ask you breakfast questions now. What would be the ideal first breakfast for someone who, like your characters, was surprised to find themselves having company in the morning?
Bacon and toast. I love eggs, but I like my eggs very specific and I find that room service eggs are often not that good. If you're at home cooking, eggs over-easy are the ideal.

What is your platonic ideal of breakfast?
Eggs over-easy with bacon, crispy potatoes—home fries usually. Sometimes hash browns but they're usually not crispy enough for me. I like them like a latke. And then really good toast. I love coffee so I sometimes want something tiny and sweet along with my coffee, but usually I want nothing sweet on my breakfast plate.

What does really good toast mean to you?
I am a white bread person. Sometimes sourdough but it can be a little too sour. Pain de mie is the perfect kind of bread for toast but you can only get that certain places. Challah toast is amazing.

What's on the toast?
Butter. Sometimes salted butter or butter with a little salt sprinkled on top.

I have a question that I ask all authors because it turns out people are really polarized about this. Where do you stand on oatmeal?
Oh, I hate oatmeal. I am not a picky eater but my only major food dislikes are textural so I don't really like things that are jiggly or gloppy. I can take a few spoonfuls and be like OK where is something that I can chew? I feel like in order to make oatmeal taste good you have to put a lot butter and sugar in there. And I'd rather just happily eat an oatmeal cookie.

What would be the ideal purse snack for two hot strangers to share in an elevator?
My two ideal purse snacks are like pepperoni sticks and cheese stacks although the problem is that you can only have them in your purse for so long, which I have learned to my detriment. Cheez-Its, too, but then I get crumbs all over the bottom of my purse. I always have crumbs at the bottom of all of my purses.