When Daniel gets caught up in the demands of a cheeky wedding planning app, his fiancé Erik grows frustrated with his preoccupation with adhering to heterosexual traditions. Will Daniel’s groomzilla ways give them the wedding of their dreams, or ultimately lead to their relationship’s demise?
Author Name: K.E. Belledonne
Book Name: Daniel & Erik’s Super Fab Ultimate Wedding Checklist
Release Date: June 23, 2016
Pages or Words: 53,000 words, 188 pages
Categories: Contemporary, Gay Fiction, Humor, M/M Romance, Romance, Rom Com
Publisher: Interlude Press
Cover Artist: C.B. Messer
“I think Aurora is disappointed in me.”
“What?” Erik rubbed at his eye. It wasn’t even early morning, judging by the weak light coming through the blinds from the streetlights. “Who?”
“Aurora. The wedding planning app.” Daniel lay on his back, wide awake and staring up at the ceiling.
“The wedding planning app is not a sentient being. It has no feelings or opinions.”
“I feel like she’s judging me. I’m sorry if I woke you up.”
“Oh my god, go to sleep.”
“I can’t. I’m never going to sleep ever again.” Daniel tugged the blanket higher up his chest, folding his arms over it and exhaling heavily.
“You’re being dramatic.”
“I’ve got too many things buzzing in my head. There’s too many things I’m going to forget to do.”
“I thought that’s why you had that damn app, so you don’t have to remember anything; it’s all right there saved on your tablet.”
“Yes, but I have to remember to put everything in it.″ Daniel rolled over. ″She doesn’t just know everything—”
“A: She is not a she. It is an it. B: What are we doing tomorrow?”
“Oh my god, what is the point of sharing the app calendar if you’re never going to look at it?” Daniel wailed.
“I look at it. It’s just crammed so full of everything that I have no idea what’s going on when.”
Daniel blew out his breath. ”Look, I know you don’t like the calendar. We’ve been over that, but I don’t know how else to keep track of all of these appointments and deadlines.”
“I told you, we could color-code them, or something,” Erik rolled to his side and punched at his pillow.
“Aurora doesn’t give you that option.”
“Well, it should.”
“I agree, but there’s nothing I can do about that.” Daniel bunched his pillow up under his head. “Tomorrow, we have four appointments to meet with caterers: two in the morning, two in the afternoon.”
“Why so many in one day?”
“It’s the only day we both have available this week, and I am not going to make any decisions about the food at our reception without you there to discuss it.”
“Seriously, you could just make a choice, and I’ll live with it.” Erik rolled over.
“I don’t want you to just ‘live with it,’ Erik.″ Daniel tried to keep his voice neutral, but failed. ″This is our wedding. I don’t want you to just ‘live with it.’”
“Why are you getting so worked up about it?”
“We only get one chance at this. Everything needs to be perfect.”
“You’re going to drive us both crazy, you know that, right?” Erik tugged the blankets back up over his shoulder.
“Well, then, we’ll both be crazy.” Daniel squinted up at the ceiling. He was so tired of making these decisions. Why were there so many options? Why were there so many decisions? The planning was getting on Erik’s nerves; he was getting on Erik’s nerves. Erik was getting on his nerves. They were both just a pile of irritated nerves because the to-do list didn’t seem to be getting any smaller.
Daniel’s phone chimed with another notification from Aurora.
New Private Message from: MommyMargie.
His mother probably had another ludicrous suggestion for the reception, or a passive-aggressive reminder of the hymn that she and his father had had played at their wedding, that their grandparents had had played at their wedding and that she expected to hear at his wedding. Or maybe his parents had decided to paint the living room green. Who knew?
Guest Post: Hmmm…how about something around the hetero vs gay wedding traditions referenced?
There are no gay wedding traditions referenced in this book, and here’s the reason why:
Daniel is a young man coming from a family that is hyper-critical of nearly everything he does. He’s out, and they accept him – they’re not picking on him because he’s gay, they’re picking on him because they don’t know how else to be. They’re treating him just as they treat the rest of the family.
He just wants one thing that they have nothing to tear him down about, so he plans the very most hetero gay wedding that there ever was. This is how all the weddings in his family have gone, and he doesn’t want his to be any different. He doesn’t want to stick out, or do anything outlandish that would give his family more fodder to complain about.
Even though he’s come out, he feels like it’s with a caveat. He’s gay, but he’s not “too gay.” He still using them as his measure for how he “should” be.
Of course, if you’re constantly measuring yourself up against another party who will always find you lacking or faulty, everything is going to fall to pieces. Daniel relishes saying “I am not like my family”, but even that is still allowing them to be the definition, to be the metric he is compared against. It’s not until he is able to say simply “I am me, and this is who I am” that he is truly able to realize that it’s not the wedding traditions that matter, gay or hetero. It’s that the person he loves is standing in front of him and promising to love him forever.
** spoiler alert ** I must have PTSD from planning my own wedding 11 years ago, because this book made me have flashbacks.
Daniel and Erik are getting married, Daniel downloads a super-fab app to help plan the wedding which only adds stress. Erik doesn’t see the point in a big wedding but Daniel feels it’s something they have to do. The stress of the wedding planning and the stress of life push Daniel and Erik to the breaking point, will they be able to survive together?
Holy hell, based on the title and the cover I was sure I was in for a sugary sweet read, boy was I wrong. The emotions in this book were so well defined I was feeling stressed about the wedding planning! It was obvious that Daniel and Erik were a matched set and watching them work through the issues that arose was endearing.
When Daniel and Erik called it quits over wedding planning I almost cried. I was so happy when Daniel pulled his head out of the clouds and went after his man.
I’m not usually a fan of a book that flips back and forth from past to present but that format really worked for this story.
This book left me with a warm gooey feeling, I love it! Even though the wedding planning was super stressful the book is low angst, Erik is so chill that there is almost no drama.
I would love a follow up novella that explains why Annika is so evil and why she hates Daniel. I know Erik said he thought she had feelings for him but I want backstory.
4 pieces of eye candy
Interlude Press
Amazon
Barnes & Noble
Apple iBooks
ARe
Indiebound
K.E. Belledonne is a writer, editor and translator. A native New Englander, Kat spends her spare time listening to Glenn Miller records, reading history books and cheering on her beloved Red Sox. Her first novel, Right Here Waiting, was published by Interlude Press in 2015.
Where to find the author:
Facebook Author Page: https://www.facebook.com/kebelledonne
Twitter: https://twitter.com/KEBelledonne
Pinterest: https://fr.pinterest.com/kebelledonne/
Blog: www.kebelledonne.com
Tour Dates & Stops:
23-Jun
Prism Book Alliance, Unquietly Me, Book Lovers 4Ever, Man2ManTastic, Three Books Over The Rainbow,
24-Jun
Bonkers About Books, Scattered Thoughts & Rogue Words
27-Jun
Oh My Shelves, Wicked Faerie’s Tales and Reviews
28-Jun
Havan Fellows, V’s Reads, My Fiction Nook, Open Skye Book Reviews
29-Jun
Up All Night, Read All Day, Velvet Panic, MM Good Book Reviews
30-Jun
Molly Lolly, Full Moon Dreaming
1-Jul
Attention Is Arbitrary, Alpha Book Club
4-Jul
Happily Ever Chapter, The Novel Approach, Love Bytes
5-Jul
Nephy Hart, Bayou Book Junkie, Divine Magazine
6-Jul
A.M. Leibowitz, Two Chicks Obsessed With Books and Eye Candy, 3 Chicks After Dark
