We’re so pleased to have author JL Merrow joining us today to celebrate a fresh-off-the-presses addition to the Plumber’s Mate series, Lock Nut. She has such a great guest post to share with us today, and there’s also a giveaway, so be sure to check out those details, including the prompt question, below.
Welcome, JL!
World’s Worst Weddings
Lock Nut features not one but two weddings, so I thought I’d talk today about what, traditionally, is supposed to be the best day of a young (or not-so-young) person’s life. A public celebration of a couple’s love and commitment to one another, in front of all their nearest and dearest. What could possibly go wrong?*
Well, here’s a (by no means exhaustive) list:
- Amnesia
No, really. This happened to someone I was at school with. The groom has epilepsy, and seized during the reception. When he woke up, he’d lost all memory of getting married, and was left wondering why all his family and friends were there, and what exactly they were celebrating.
- The Balloon Drop that Didn’t
Not, actually, much of a disaster—we all just laughed, pulled the balloons down manually and got on with stomping—but including because (a) it happened to me and (b) you really would have thought that the words “I’m quite excited about this—I’ve never done a balloon drop before” would have clued us in that we might not have chosen the best man for the job.
- Food issues
Trawling the web, you’ll find a delightful (and I use that word quite incorrectly) selection of food-related wedding catastrophes, from the allergic groom who ate peaches at the reception and almost died, through food (or alcohol) poisoning and its, ahem, consequences, to the kilted groom who sat on his bride’s lap and left skid-marks on her dress. Moral: hygiene is important, people.
- Missing Persons
There are certain people you just can’t have a wedding without. The bride, for instance, such as the one who stole all the wedding gift money and ran away to Mexico with another man. The officiant, like the one who forgot and went fishing. Then there are the people without whom, technically, you could still go ahead, but whose absence is embarrassing, such as, say, the mother of the bride and the best man who went AWOL but later, in a happy coincidence, were discovered together. In a compromising position.
- Dirty Dancing
Dancing at a wedding is traditional. But it’s probably best not to be too ambitious on this day of all days. You’d get no argument from the bride whose English groom broke her nose with his elbow during his first try at a ceilidh. Or the one, shown in a viral video, whose groom knocked her out with a kick to the head during a back-flip. Or the happy couple (again captured on video) who tried to recreate the iconic dance move from Dirty Dancing, where Patrick Swayze lifts Jennifer Grey in the air, only to end up with her flattening him. At least there were no injuries this time.
- Drunken brawls, cheating newlyweds, and other shenanigans
I think you can use your imagination here! ;)
Question: what’s the worst wedding disaster you’ve ever seen or heard about?
*The author freely admits she has watched Game of Thrones. But I’m hoping most real-life wedding disasters don’t approach quite the level of the Red Wedding. Or the Purple Wedding. Or the Black Wedding…seriously, does anyone live happily ever after in Westeros?
About the Book
Still waters run deadly.
Tom Paretski, plumber with a talent for finding hidden things, and his private investigator fiancé Phil Morrison have been hired to locate a runaway husband, Jonathan Parrot. The job seems simple enough—until their quarry turns up dead in a canal, and a photofit of Tom’s face is splashed all over the news, making him chief suspect.
The widow, petite ex–porn star Lilah Lovett, is convinced her husband was killed by his gay lover, but Tom and Phil aren’t so sure. Worried they may have precipitated Jonathan’s death, they’re determined to find the real killer. But with a web of incestuous ties linking the suspects, it’s hard to know who to trust. Especially when a second victim dies a gruesome death.
Meanwhile, with their wedding looming and them sharing a house now, Tom’s worried it may all be too much, too fast. The last thing he needs are the mixed messages Phil seems to be sending out. They’ll need to get back on the same track if they want to make it to their honeymoon together—and alive.
Available at: Amazon || Barnes & Noble || iBooks || Kobo
About the Author
JL Merrow is that rare beast, an English person who refuses to drink tea. She read Natural Sciences at Cambridge, where she learned many things, chief amongst which was that she never wanted to see the inside of a lab ever again. Her one regret is that she never mastered the ability of punting one-handed whilst holding a glass of champagne.
She writes (mostly) contemporary gay romance and mysteries, and is frequently accused of humour. Her novels have won Rainbow Awards for Romantic Comedy, and have been EPIC Awards finalists.
JL Merrow is a member of the Romantic Novelists’ Association, International Thriller Writers, Verulam Writers and the UK GLBTQ Fiction Meet organising team.
Website || Twitter: @jlmerrow || Facebook || Goodreads
The Giveaway
To celebrate the release of Lock Nut, JL is giving away a $10 Amazon gift card! Leave a comment with your contact info to enter the contest. Entries close at midnight, Eastern time, on May 19, 2018. Contest is NOT restricted to U.S. entries. Thanks for following along, and don’t forget to leave your contact info!
I love this series! I’m really looking forward to reading this one.
kimandpete123 at gmail dot com
Thanks – I hope you’ll enjoy it. :)
Well, it was only slightly, mildly amusing, and not a disaster, but…. Many years ago when my brother was married, when the pastor came to the “is there any reason these two should not be married, speak now…” bit of the ceremony, there was a crash of thunder at that very moment. I thought, ha, sounds like god himself has some objections! Anyway… I’m right in the middle of reading this book now. I LOVE this series, and hope it will continue on for a very long time! (octobercountry2 at gmail dot com)
Lol! Divine intervention! I hope the marriage proved anything but ill-omened. ;)
And thank you so much! :D
Congrats and that’s a pretty good list of mishaps. And this sounds like a great addition to an already good series. – Purple Reader,
TheWrote [at] aol [dot] com
Duh, forgot to add the disaster. At my niece’s outdoor wedding, they had to rush the vows, just after which the skies opened up and washed out the reception, but fortunately we could all escape to the barn.
Yeah, relying on the weather is always tricky. But I do love a good barn dance! :)
Thank you! :D
Congratulations on the new release. Found a few funny wedding stories, and could only shake my head at the priest who was annoyed about a phone ringing when he was officiating only to discover he hadn’t turned off his phone. How embarrassing. j dot stonewright at gmail dot com
Lol – I’m sure he could turn that into an instructive sermon! ;)
I can’t wait to read this book!
kathleenpower@comcast.net
Hope you’ll enjoy it! :D
A real disaster, not a funny one. I heard about a wedding where the floor collapsed at the reception. I know this has been a storyline on TV, but I heard about this many years ago.
jlshannon74 at gmail.com
Oh, that doesn’t sound funny at all. :( Must have been awful for all concerned.
I remember reading a minister’s tale of a wedding he officiated where the bride threw up mid-vow (she’d thought canapes and a sip of champagne beforehand would settle her nerves, and they didn’t). She and the groom apparently ended up happy, though, and even showed the wedding video to their horrified children years later. (And weirdly, the Vicar of Dibley “wrong church” clip has been making the e-mail forward rounds lately…)
vitajex(at)aol(Dot)com
I think if that happens, you simply have to find the humour in it, otherwise it’d be too embarrassing for words!
A real disaster… In my sister’s wedding, the hairdresser broke her arm the day before the wedding… And she had to do the hair of three of us! (my sister, my mom and me). So we ended up arriving an hour and a half late. It was terrible, my brother in law was looking greenish, I think most people were fearing a now show…
Congratulations on the release, Jamie. I love your books
susanaperez7140(at)Gmail(dot)com
Blimey, you were lucky the venue didn’t have another wedding booked straight after!
That poor man, waiting at the church! ;)
Thank you for the interesting post. I don’t think I’ve ever directly been involved with a wedding that was disastrous.
humhumbum AT yahoo DOT com
You’re welcome! :)
Well, there was one wedding where the groom’s cousin started a brawl on the dance floor. Another when I had to fix the straps of someone’s dress with safety pins when they both broke. She probably caught her dress before flashing anyone. And a third when I was a bridesmaid and I found a couple of guests making out in the bride’s suite at the venue. They were not happy with me. violet817(at)aol(dot)com
Ouch – brawls at a wedding are never good. And really? In the bride’s suite? That’s definitely not good etiquette!
I don’t really have funny wedding anecdote as I haven’t been to many but something that was unsettling was attending the wedding of my mothers friend (it was an outdoor wedding) drinks -non alcoholic – were opened to drink them of course during the course of the wedding and one of my tablemates took a big slurp of her canned beverage but then out crawls a huge bug thereafter.
Thanks for the opportunity…Kapony2 (at) aol (dot) com
Ew! Not nice at all! :D
No disasters to report. Just enjoying a “good news” Saturday morning – pretty weather you’re having in Windsor today – and looking forward to spending a few hours with Tom and Phil. Thank you for doing all the heavy lifting here, JL :-)
nblibgirl at hotmail
Wasn’t it all lovely? And luckily, no disasters in Windsor! :D
My own wedding memory isn’t a horror story…just more a momentary loss of the rest of the wedding party!
My husband and I were married in a small, midwestern town. At 2:00 on a Friday afternoon in May. After the ceremony was over the photographer wanted some more photos of just the two of us, so we exited out the front of the church…expecting everyone to be waiting for us. Surprise! No one was there…just people driving down Main Street looking at us like we’re a couple of nuts!
We still laugh about it…46 years later.
dfair1951@gmail.com
LOL! They must have been eager to get to the reception! ;)