Rom-com at its best, The Wedding Date Disaster is a fabulous blend of the enemies to lovers and fake boyfriend tropes. It’s set mainly in gorgeous Tuscany against the backdrop of an over-the-top wedding that takes place over four days and stars a bridezilla of epic proportions. Gemma Evans is an editor but she’s also a writer, who has hopes of having her manuscript published. She’s grown up as a people pleaser, courtesy of a dysfunctional family that resulted from her father leaving her mother for another woman, having a baby with that woman, and then moving back into the family hope with both the other woman and the baby in tow. Lulu, aka Bridezilla, is that baby and she comes close to stealing the show at times with her antics and unreasonable demands.
Gemma fled the family home as an eighteen-year-old, went to university, and then moved as far away from home as possible to start her publishing career in Australia and the only reason she is looking forward to Lulu’s wedding is the fact that it is in Italy. Gemma is appalled to discover that the blind date destined to be her fake boyfriend at her stepsister’s wedding is none other than her nemesis, Benjamin McDonald.
Ben has just received the promotion Gemma had expected for herself and since she already regards him as a weasel, this latest transgression has moved him direct to the pinnacle of her list of least favourite people. He’s gorgeous, friendly, charming, and helpful to her colleagues, who all think he’s wonderful, but also a ruthless businessman. He seems to take a perverse pleasure in baiting Gemma and the ensuing banter between the pair is vibrant, funny, and witty.
This book had me laughing my head off at one minute and feeling huge empathy for Gemma and the various tribulations she faces. It’s a perfect weekend read.

I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I have read a lot of enemies-to-lovers books, but this one felt so fresh compared to a lot of the others I have read. The author breathed new life into the genre. I enjoyed this book from the very first page!

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this arc!!

Chefs kiss!! This is a great little fake dating romp and I ate it right up. Excellent beach read.

Get ready for a rollercoaster of emotions, because The Wedding Date Disaster is the perfect blend of romance, humor, and a little bit of chaos. Meet Gemma Evans, an editor who’s about to have the worst wedding weekend ever — thanks to her workplace nemesis, Ben McDonald. When things take a turn, she ropes him into being her fake date at a family wedding, and well, let’s just say sparks fly. Between the awkwardness, the laughs, and a pinch of Italian sunshine, what could possibly go wrong? (Hint: everything and nothing).

this was good! i love a good fake dating book and this one wasn’t anything super original, but it was a great take on the trope and i had so much fun reading. definitely a summer book— you just want to be reading it at the beach! and our male lead? oh, chef’s kiss, THIS IS WHAT WE NEED MORE OF!!

Super fun! If you give me a book set in italy, I'm already going to be dreaming, but give me this angsty filled, spicy book and i'm drooling. Highly recommend

I wanted to love this so much, but it did fall a little flat. There was a lot of judgement, and the leads were just a little too rude for me. And I guess the cheating in the book was too much for me? I understand that Gemma's boyfriend was not attentive, but then just break up.

This is an enemies to lovers book that mostly worked because they weren't really enemies, just misunderstood each other. Gemma was really slow to see her life accurately. Ben was a great book boyfriend, once the reader became aware of his true self. This book would've benefited a lot from a dual POV. I don't know if Ben's reveal to be a good guy was so necessary, it made Gemma seem pretty immature. A cute quick read that transports you to Italy, and who doesnt love a romance in Italy? Good for fans of the tv show Younger. 3 stars. Thanks to Net Galley and One More Chapter for this eARC in exchange for my honest review.

This book was a very fun read. There's witty banter, the push & pull off enemies to lovers, and of course, the eventual realization of all of the things.

Yes, all of the things. Finally knowing who you truly are, and what you need to do to show it to those who matter. A woman coming into her own, and having someone by her side who fully supports her.

I would definitely recommend this book.

Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC of this book in exchange for my honest review.

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.

||: The Wedding Date Disaster
By Kate Mathieson
Chapter Five Page 51
4.5 🌟🌟🌟🌟💫

[ The envelope could have a thousand great things in there. And offer of a house? Early retirement? A prince writing to tell me I'm his long-lost cousin and there's a spare Italian palazzo awaiting me.
But I know only one thing; it's from my family.
I've put an entire ocean's distance between us, but now the envelope is in my hands. Glossy and hideous. I can't tell what it's going to be. But it's something BIG.
My parents’ wedding anniversary? A birthday? I could explain my way out of these.. or so I hope. I don't have to fly back to England, do I?
Before I can even get inside my apartment, curiosity and anxiety overwhelm me. I take the envelope and rip it open.]

In this fast-paced, emotional filled, triple threat of a book we meet Gemma. Well, we meet many sides of Gemma and very quickly I learnt to love her. She was sassy, knew what she wanted, and wasn't afraid to go against the norm. A real independent woman who believes her life was on track.. until she met him. Ben.
How can your whole life change in four days? It can’t! Other than torture her worse than an executioner could in the middle-ages.

I love this coming of New Age love story that isn't a romantically induced coma normality.. with a boy meets-girl across a room.. moment than has been done to death.
No, Gemma is not a typical woman and I liked her straight away, even more once flaws started to surface and although I was irritated by Ben, I might have been rooting for him in the end. It was very gritty with a little bit of spice without going overboard. I love Italy, which made me love this book even more, and I have to say I did like Lulu.

Actually, I don't think there was anything I didn't like.. no wait. There was.
I want to know what happened next.

A huge thank you to Kate Mathieson, Harper Collins UK; One More Chapter and Netgalley for the opportunity to read and relay my honest feedback :||

Reading this book made me feel so many feelings! The people pleasing nature of Gemma, the FMC, resonated with me so completely that I felt uncomfortable at times. The writer captured the thoughts and feelings of the character so well that I actually felt the pain with her. When she found a way to stick up for herself and tell her truth I actually teared up! It was an amazing character arc!
I wasn't sure I was going to like this book from the first few chapters as I actively hated Ben, the MMC. I just couldn't imagine how the author could turn it around for him to be the good guy! But I was so wrong. He turns out to be the best guy and shows it again and again. There relationship is a slow burn that has you falling in love too. You can't help but root for them.
Kate Mathieson has a magical way of writing characters that just makes them feel real. I have really enjoyed reading this book!

I really enjoyed "The Wedding Date Disaster" I thought it was a cute read that's definitely meant for lounging by the pool or on the beach. This book was an immediate pick for me because of the enemies to lovers trope and the fact most of it takes place in Italy!

In the beginning of the book we find Gemma on what she hopes is the precipice of a turn in career and life. She is hoping for a promotion, for her and her boyfriend to move in together, and for her to really start being able to publish the books that she is interested. The only problem is that the new hot shot editor is standing in her way of the promotion.

Through a comedy of errors Gemma finds herself flying to Italy for her sister's wedding without her actual boyfriend, and instead has a stand in boyfriend who just so happens to be Ben, the hot shot editor who took her promotion.

Thanks to Kate Mathieson and HarperCollins UK, One More Chapter for allowing me to read this early copy of "The Wedding Date Disaster."

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.5
Spice: 🌶️🌶️.5

Okay why did this give The Proposal vibes? I actually loved the banter and the relationship between Ben and Gemma. And the concept was amazing.

Definitely recommend for an easy and quick read.

The premise of this book was solid, but I found both characters to be very unlikable. Gemma is an editor who has a large streak of people pleasing. Ben is the smug new editor at her publishing house. This enemies to lovers is an easy read, but wasn’t the book for me.

Fairly cute and easy read. I did have a problem with the main character, Gemma being unlikeable for most of the first third of the book. She had a chip on her shoulder and a bad attitude underneath a desire to people-please. Kind of a doormat, not happy about it but not willing to rock the boat. When she starts to come around it makes for an interesting awakening. Gemma is very good at her editing job at a publishing house but of course wants to write her own book. There are family dynamics that are relatable if a bit over the top. It adds to her people pleasing while gritting her teeth behavior. I'd have given in for a chance to spend a week in Tuscany too. It's amazing and my favorite place on earth - at the moment.

Ben is the new guy at work and gets the job Gemma wants. He's nice, people like him and he's successful. This makes Gemma jealous and rude. Ben has no idea, he's such a good guy he doesn't get her thinly veiled contempt. It's a pleasure to watch him bring her out of her rut. His encouragement makes all the difference. Their HEA was a bit of a twist, I like the way it played out.

I received a complimentary copy of this book. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own. Thank you to NetGalley and One More Chapter publisher.

#TheWeddingDateDisaster #NetGalley #OneMoreChapter #KateMathieson #romance #contemporaryromance #HarperCollins

This had potential but the characters were wholly uninteresting and at times, downright infuriating. The MMX was a turd and the FMC was either being a doormat or a brat.

The Wedding Date Disaster has a bit of it all! Enemies to lovers, family dramas, fake dating, slow burn, forced proximity. And Kate Mathieson makes it work!

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Gemma is a complete yes girl. She lets her whole family walk all over her and does everything y she can, to her own detriment to keep them happy. And her sister’s wedding is no different…

When her boyfriend tells her that he’s too busy to be her date to the wedding, after she’s already told her family he will be going, she needs someone who will pretend to be him. For a week. On a destination wedding.

Enter the man who took her promotion at work. Ben. The man who’s been nothing but rude to her the whole time Gemma has known him… He agrees to pretend to be her boyfriend and we start to find out that he’s not actually as bad as he seems.

Although I did get a bit frustrated at Gemma at times (why can’t she just say no?!). I really loved this story, and although I knew where it was going, I loved how Gemma and Ben got there!

Thank you Kate Mathieson, Netgalley and One More Chapter for this advanced reader copy in exchange for an honest review. The Wedding Date Disaster is out now and I’d definitely recommend getting your hands on it!

Gemma is having a run of bad luck. She was denied for a promotion that went to her work nemesis, a good looking guy named Ben. He’s slick and suave and Gemma can’t stand him. At the same time, her sister is getting married in Italy and her boyfriend can’t go, and she’s not going alone because everyone will comment on her single status.
Her friend sets her up with a date in exchange for a trip to Italy, and Gemma is appalled when she sees that her date is Ben, her enemy from work.
He charms her entire family at the wedding, and after a while he charms Gemma as well. She discovers that there’s much more to Ben than she thought.
This is a charming and humorous enemies to lovers romance. I liked the descriptions of Italy, and their romance feels authentic. I hope you’ll enjoy reading this as much as I did!

Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley, I received a complimentary copy of this book. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

The Wedding Date Disaster was fun and charming. I really enjoyed the witty banter, the slow-burning tension, and the family drama. I also enjoyed how the story gradually revealed more about the characters, letting their relationship build piece by piece. Once the tension kicked in, it was fantastic—I just wished there had been even more moments with Gemma and Ben together because their dynamic was easily the best part. Their banter was top-tier, and Gemma’s sense of humor made her such a fun protagonist to follow.

That said, there were some slow sections where I found myself missing their interactions, and certain aspects of the family drama wrapped up a little too neatly, considering how things started. Some conflicts could have used more development before being resolved.

Overall, though, this was an entertaining and satisfying read! Thank you so much to NetGalley and HarperCollins UK, One More Chapter for the eARC of this fun book!