Guest Blogger, Kate
by sue on Dec.18, 2009, under Book Chat
Planning a wedding in real life is not at all like European historical novels where gala affairs can be thrown together in 3 weeks time to take advantage of a special license. I know. I got married 10 days ago. So you’ll have to forgive me if I’ve still got weddings on the brain.
The day was lovely – beautiful weather, a wonderful venue that backed right up on to a southern Australian beach. I had a dress I adored, a groom I loved more, and special bridal flip flops to be worn on the lawn when my heels got too much. It couldn’t have been more perfect, which is all the more shocking for the fact that I planned it in six months, and I wasn’t really interested in the thing.
I was never one of those girls that planned for their weddings from a young age. I never sketched out bridal gowns. I had no idea that veils came in different lengths. Don’t even get me started on the crash course of wedding etiquette I took (in the end, we circumvented it by having a picnic, complete with monogrammed picnic blankets – no seating arrangement or head table required!). And when I read romance novels, I like the ones with weddings in the middle best. 
The way I see it, weddings happen in romance novels in three different places, as three different plot points. The weddings that happen at the end are the most standard – an enormous, joyous celebration of the love our protagonists have managed to find together, against all odds. These are the weddings of big white dresses, enormous banquets, song, dance, wine, embarrassing speeches, tears of joy, and plenty of laughter. These are the weddings that are followed by a baby some nine months later. They are the ending that romance novels were originally designed to meet. Some 65% of romance novels I read have weddings like these.
Don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing like a good happy ending. But I normally skip reading these wedding scenes.
Weddings that happen at the beginning make up about 15% of the romance novels I read. These are very common in medieval-set romance novels, though they occasionally pop up in other situations as well. Normally the King or a distant lord arranges a marriage between two people – generally for money or power – and they are forced to make do as best they can. The forced proximity brings out the sparks in the relationship, especially if she is particularly feisty and he is particularly officious. These stories can be a lot of fun, but they’re still not my preferred choice.
Me, I like weddings that happen in the middle. They share some similarities with beginning weddings – notably that they’re not really celebrations of great joy – but they’ve got one eensy, teensy, tiny little difference. The hero and the heroine know each other.
The hero and the heroine already know each other. There’s the rub. They’ve had plenty of time to meet, say hello, maybe spar a bit, definitely dance at least once, and recognise near-immediately that they just won’t suit. Sure, he may have noticed that her breasts are especially luscious. She’s no doubt aware of the way his eyes flash when he’s startled into laughter. But they’re completely incompatible. Really, it’s out of the question. Honestly, why are we still even talking about it? 
But something happens – a very innocent situation taken out of context or a manipulation of some description – and boom! Middle of the story wedding. As I mentioned, these aren’t the happy occasions of end-of-story weddings, but neither are they able to be the detached, clinical occasions of beginning-of-story weddings. No, these weddings have angst. First, as we’ve already discovered, they’re completely unsuitable. Second, they just seem to find themselves arguing all the time. Third, the physical attraction is most inconvenient, especially as the marriage will never be consummated…
In middle-of-the-story weddings, our hero and heroines have time to think and to make plans. They have time to throw up as many flimsy barricades as possible to protect their already semi-engaged hearts. They have time to steel themselves against the onslaught of the nearness of the other person. The opposite of love, after all, is not hate. It’s indifference. And our protagonists are nowhere near indifferent.
Sometimes one of them is self-aware enough to recognise their feelings, which only adds to the emotion – after all, how desperate to be in love with your spouse when they don’t love you back, to be so close and yet so far…
It’s the emotion in these stories that pulls me in – the stages of grief as they realise they’re in a situation they can’t go out of, and the sometimes slow, but always inexorable fall into love on the other side. Forget your happy weddings, says I. Give me middle-of-the-story weddings everytime.
Most of my favorite middle-of-the-story weddings happen in historicals – The Duke and I by Julia Quinn and Lord of Scoundrels by Loretta Chase, for example – but Susan Elizabeth Phillips does a lovely middle-of-story wedding in Nobody’s Baby But Mine.
It’s just plain, old-fashioned luck that my life isn’t a romance novel – I may have had to skip over my own end-of-story wedding…GAH! Potential nine-month baby!!
Bio:
My name is Kate, and I’m an Australian reader. I’ve been active in trying to support and promote romance here in Australia for the last 5 years -
I’ve started two romance reading groups, and also wrote a column in a major city newspaper here for 2 year about the romance genre.
I tweet at katydidinoz, and currently write for ARRA (the Australian Romance Readers Association), Booktopia, and my own website the Australian Romance Reader ( www.romancereaders.com.au)
Related posts:
- Guest blogger, Kate Carlisle & $25 Borders e-Gift Card! Borders: Writing Romance and Mystery Thank you, Sue, for inviting me to guest blog here at True Romance today. I love Borders, so this is a real thrill for me. And it’s especially exciting for me to celebrate the release of my first romance, The Millionaire Meets His Match, with...
- Reader Blogger, Ryann & Giveaway ($$ value!) Hello, fellow romance readers – I have a confession to make. Well, two confessions. Ok, maybe three. Or, four. Well, let’s just see how it goes. First, I am in the midst of a reading slump. Does that ever happen to you? I have this urge to read a really...
- Guest Author, Lisa Jackson & Giveaway! RUNNING SCARED RUNNING SCARED was a lot of fun to write. Why? Because of the characters, and, oh, yeah the plot. Though the love story is between Daegan O’Rourke (one of my favorite heroes!)and Kate Summers, the plot spins off Kate’s son, Jon, and his birth about fifteen years...
- Guest Blogger, Karyn! HARLEQUIN BLAZE LINE: WORTH A LOOK, WORTH A READ If you are looking for a light, sexy read, then these books will be right up your alley. Blaze is a spin off of Silhouette Temptation, launched in August 2001 with Vicki Lewis Thompson’s ‘Notorious’. It started with 4 titles...
- Guest Author, Carly Phillips & $25 Borders EGC Giveaway! KISS ME IF YOU CAN by Carly Phillips Setting: NYC Subgenre: Contemporary Hero: Sam Cooper “Coop” Heroine: Lexie Davis One sentence summary: What do you get when you bring together one free spirited traveler, a settled city dweller, an off the wall grandmother and her cast of friends and...
15 Comments for this entry
1 Trackback or Pingback for this entry
-
Tweets that mention Guest Blogger, Kate - trueromance -- Topsy.com
December 18th, 2009 on 8:12 am[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by wedding Queen, Jeff A. Jones. Jeff A. Jones said: Guest Blogger, Kate - trueromance http://bit.ly/81Pt7M [...]
Leave a Reply
About Sue & Borders True Romance Blog
Sue G - Borders True Romance Host - Borders Romance Buyer, reads romance. For her JOB. No, really. You can email Sue at sgrimshaw at bordersgroupinc dot com.
Borders True Romance Blog is a community, developed for you, the romance reader, to find out more about the books you love; the authors who write them & where to buy them :) Borders.com
Previously published as Wishes No Matter How Fast You Run. . .The newborn baby boy is beautiful, perfect, and hers for the asking. All Kate Summers has to do is agree to one condition--she must disappear from Boston and never breathe a word about the adoption to anyone. Or How Far You Go. . .Fifteen years later, Kate has built a good life for herself and her son, Jon, in Hopewell, Oregon. Still, she is haunted by the fear that he will somehow be taken away. Then Daegan O'Rourke arrives in town and strikes up a friendship with her and Jon. But Daegan has his own past to hide--one with shocking ties to hers. A Killer Will Always Find You. . .Someone is watching Kate, watching her son, and is willing to go to any lengths to claim him. And the one man Kate is tempted to trust has dangerous secrets that could change her world forever. Soon the past Kate thought she could outrun will explode, unearthing a legacy of lies and treachery, and a fury powerful enough to kill. . .
Friend Feed
February 15th, 2010 on 4:42 am
I fully agree with author opinion.
February 4th, 2010 on 5:30 pm
Hey hunnie, sweet blog! I really like this article.. I was curious about this for a long time now. This cleared a lot up for me! Do you have a rss feed that I can add?
December 19th, 2009 on 5:40 pm
Great blog, Kate.
I don’t mind where in a book the wedding comes — as you say, each situation throws up different problems. I’ve written all three and am currently finishing off a middle-of-the-book one.
Loved the pic of you and your man on the rocks at the edge of the sea. Alas for youtube, I was waiting for the sea monsters to surge out of the water and grab you… Glad you both survived
December 19th, 2009 on 2:08 am
I really don’t mind middle of the story weddings, I like to find out what happens after the commitment. The story leading up is always fun, but what happens after they get together is always on my mind.
December 18th, 2009 on 2:28 pm
It really doesn’t make a difference to me where a wedding takes place in a book. I really care about what leads up to it,why it took place, or why it is going to take place. I read the entire story to get the answers to these questions.
December 18th, 2009 on 2:00 pm
Hi, Kate! Congratulations! Best wishes for your own “happily-ever-after”.
I agree that mid-book marriages can make for an intriguing romance read. They can also result in great character development, richly detailed story lines and a wonderful supporting cast.
December 19th, 2009 on 5:09 pm
Hey, thanks Virginia! It really was a perfect day…
December 18th, 2009 on 1:05 pm
Hi Kate! Nice to have you here today! Great blog! I love wedding books. With four daughters, not only does it give me ideas for theirs, it also gives me a good reason to cry. I get so tired of the wedding then babies or the big build up to the wedding at the end. Weddings in the middle of the book give the author more room to develop the storyline.
December 18th, 2009 on 11:24 am
you know, i don’t remember reading a romance with a wedding in the middle. it’s always the “end wedding” or the “beginning wedding.” i’ll try some of your book suggestions there
i also tend to avoid romances with where the h/h just meet in the beginning of the novel and have a wedding at the end and the time period of the whole novel is two weeks. of course they spend the whole time arguing.. i can never believe h/h can last after the wedding in those kind of stories.
i prefer stories where the h/h already know each other before the story starts: were best friends/family friends, former lovers, already married to each other but estranged–these are my favorite kind of plot lines. most of these kind of stories have weddings in the end but i don’t mind it then. thanks for the great post
December 19th, 2009 on 5:11 pm
Hi Michelle,
I’m a big fan of best-friends-finding-something-more stories as well. There’s a great deal of in-built tension in stories like that: does he/she feel the same way? Am I just imagining it because he/she gets me?
and the all important ‘this friendship is the most important thing in my life, will trying something more ruin it?’ angst.
Oooh yes. I do love a good best-friends-becoming-more story!
Kate
December 18th, 2009 on 11:20 am
Excellent post. And I agree with the weddings in the middle. Lord of Scoundrels was a brilliant story of that ilk. I’m not a weddings at the beginning fan and my contemporary needs don’t demand a wedding and baby for HEA.
But that wedding in the middle as you say… it promises more fireworks and a lot more story fun.
December 19th, 2009 on 5:08 pm
Hi Lori,
Fireworks - that’s exactly right. With middle-of-story weddings, you’re almost always guaranteed fireworks!
Kate
December 18th, 2009 on 11:13 am
My mom skips over the end of book wedding scenes as well. As a writer I like to read every word the author writes, but that’s because I am a huge fan of words! LoL
I, like you, do prefer the middle of story weddings, although there are no boundaries in my writing so I do test all three wedding variations in my books!
Thanks for the post!
December 18th, 2009 on 10:43 am
What an excellent blog — I actually really like books with weddings in the middle! Especially historicals when they don’t know each other that well. Too many to list but Mary Balogh and Jo Beverley both do these very well — a good one: An Unwilling Bride by Jo Beverley.
December 19th, 2009 on 5:12 pm
Do you know, I’ve never read Jo Beverley? I know that I should…and I have a couple on my shelf…but my TBR pile is so confronting, I never seem to make it all the way through!
Still, with some holidays coming up, it might be the perfect time to give it a try!
Thanks for the rec!
Kate