When floundering and unlucky-in-love twentysomething Lottie Jones lands a new career as a wedding planner at a top-tier boutique event firm, she begins navigating a cutthroat workplace specializing in over-the-top details, unlimited budgets, and a broad spectrum of taste. Whether planning for parachute landings or wrangling intoxicated groomsmen, she has her hands full at every million-dollar wedding she helps organize.
After her boss announces he’s opening a new office, Lottie sees her chance to finally carve out her place—and earn an income that justifies her dating app subscription fees. The weddings get bigger, the clients get wilder, the mishaps get funnier, and the stakes get higher. And Lottie’s forced to discover what she’ll risk for love and how far she’ll go to find herself.
Set against the glamorous, ruthless world of high-end Southern weddings and inspired by real events in the authors’ lives, “Without a Hitch” is a hilarious romp about taking ownership, facing fears, planning your ex-boyfriend’s wedding, and choosing a happy ending that wasn’t what you once expected.
We hope you’ll enjoy the exclusive excerpt from this book.
“How could this happen? Where is she? I can’t even see her!” Mary Ellen was still trying to catch her breath from running up the grassy hill in heels.
“That’s her? Over there in the bushes? Well how do you suggest we get her out?” Mary Ellen barked out.
Then it hit me. She was talking about the entertainer we’d hired to perform to music on the client’s man-made lake during the firework show. The lake sat directly beneath the hill we stood on and would be in clear view of the guests once they moved to the tent deck following dinner.
In an ideal world, the female acrobat was to be encased in a large plastic bubble—like a hamster in a hamster ball—and dance around as it floated across the top of the water. Cedric had seen this done on a pool at some gala he’d attended in the Hamptons, and when he mentioned it to Cassie’s mother, she said she just had to have it at her daughter’s wedding.
The bubble dancer’s show coordinated with the fireworks display; the first boom was her cue to begin. So when the fireworks launched for a crowd of zero, her show started early. Then the pre-sunset winds had gusted and blown her into an overgrown corner of the lake. Not only was she now a hamster trapped in her little hamster ball, but she also looked to be hurt.
Mary Ellen radioed the lighting tech to shine a spotlight on the situation, but her priority was to check on guests post-explosion. All it took was one pointed look in my direction for me to know I was going fishing for the bubble lady.
My pride had been decimated long ago, so as I picked my way over through the shrubbery filled with God knows what, I decided to call in my own backup. Still barefoot, I might add.
“Griffin? It’s Lottie. Are you still on break, or are you back on?” I breathed heavily into my cell. (No way was I going to radio him for the whole team to hear.)
“Yeah, I’m eating the pathetic scraps the band left behind. Why do you sound so winded?”
“Well, we have another situation down by the lake, and I could really use some help . . . That is, if you’re not busy and don’t mind. And swear not to take one single picture or I will break your camera.”
“Gee, how could I pass that up? Way to sell it. Wedding planning sure looks like a real gas.”
“You’re hilarious. But I could use the help. And don’t talk about gas at the moment. There are live pyrotechnics going off. Just shut up, come outside, and follow the spotlight to the lake. Can’t miss it.”
With that I hung up the phone and approached the bubble in the bushes.
Tavia, the performer we’d hired from Reno, wore a shiny gold Spandex unitard that captured the light and thankfully made her easier to spot in the brush. She was polite but clearly in pain—and desperate for assistance.
“Hold on, I’ve got someone else coming, and we’ll figure out how to get you out of that thing.”
“Thanks,” she said, holding her ankle. “I think I twisted it when I bumped into the rocks near the shore. I don’t know if I can dance tonight.”
“Don’t worry about that at all.” I tried to stay calm and hunt for a branch to push her closer to shore again. Her bubble floated just out of reach, but I couldn’t find anything around me to help guide her to the side.
Just then, Griffin—by now a regular hero—showed up. He assessed the situation.
“Grab my hand.” His palm was warm, and I was suddenly aware of my clammy palms—until he almost pulled me with him into the lake.
“What are you doing?” I shrieked.
“Just hold on. I’m going to lean in and try to push her to the side.”
He was pretty lean but pushing six feet, I imagined. As we made a human rope, it took both my hands and every ounce of strength I had to keep us both from going in the water.
“There! That should do it,” he said as though he had just won the 5A state championship.
The bubble floated to the shore. “How do we get you out of there, Tavia?” I asked.
“There’s a watertight zipper over here,” she gestured. Griffin grabbed the zipper, and as soon as he started pulling down, the air released and our injured mermaid was free.
Though we had rescued Tavia, this was still a big problem. We now had nothing left for the after-dinner show. Not that the infinite stars overhead weren’t enough to gaze at, in my opinion, but Cassie’s parents had paid for pizzazz.
“Thank you, Griffin.” I shooed him on his way. “Dessert should be served soon, which we know means cake cutting.” A photographer who missed a cake cutting would be blacklisted from any future wedding business.
“Good call, don’t want to miss the traditional face-shoving-of-the-cake.” He turned to leave, and I took a moment to breathe. Mary Ellen and Cedric showed up just as Griffin was out of sight (thank goodness).
“Don’t panic. We can fix this, or at least part of it.” For someone so outwardly dramatic, Cedric was calm and collected at events—but I wasn’t sure even he knew how to bring already detonated fireworks back to life. “Listen, there’s no way to salvage the firework show, but by God, there will be a bubble dance performance.”
“How?” Mary Ellen and I asked in unison.
I could guess what he was thinking. No way I would say it aloud, though, let alone offer myself as the sacrificial lamb.
“Lottie, I’m going to ask more of you than I normally ever would.” Okay, here he goes. “But I’ll promote you to junior planner and give you an extra week’s worth of paid vacation if you put on that unitard, get in that bubble, and do your best to move it around the lake.”
Excerpted from the book Without a Hitch. Copyright ©2021 by Asher Fogle Paul & Mary Hollis Huddleston. Printed with permission from Harper Muse.
