The Wedding Planners: Meet new author Kimberly Lang

Tuesday, January 6, 2009

Meet new author Kimberly Lang

We'd like to introduce to you Kimberly Lang, a new Harlequin author who has a book out in the UK. She'll be stopping back by when her book hits the shelves in April in the US.

I’m so tickled to be here on the Wedding Planners blog because, once upon a time, I wanted to be a wedding planner. Of course, I’d never actually planned a wedding (not even my own because I eloped), but I’d been a guest at several. I was working as a conference and event planner at the time, so I knew how to organize events, negotiate with hotels and caterers, and I was a hopeless romantic at heart. It seemed like the perfect idea – I had the basic training, how hard could it possibly be?

Then my friends started getting married, and I got to see the inner workings of wedding planning up close and personal. It was an eye-opening experience, to say the least. I hadn’t realized what emotional minefields weddings could be. When I’d planned scientific conferences, it didn’t matter that the napkins were more mauve than lilac. No one burst into tears at the sight of carnations in centerpieces or spent hours debating bow ties versus ascots. It didn’t matter what kind of stamps went on the envelopes or if someone got a strange haircut at the last minute.

My pride in my professional credentials started taking a beating. I – the person who’d managed to get 250 non-English speaking scientists to a conference being held an hour from the nearest airport without losing any of them – couldn’t manage to get my best friend into the shower on her wedding day. As I forcefully threw my BFF into the bathtub over her wails of “I don’t want it to be my special day anymore,” I knew that whatever I was going to be when I grew up, it sure wasn’t going to have anything to do with planning any weddings.

With that in mind, you might find it a little amusing that my first book, The Secret Mistress Arrangement (Mills and Boon Modern Heat – on sale in the UK now!), opens at a wedding, where the frazzled Maid of Honor is at the end of her tether and about to snap. There’s certainly a little bit of me in my heroine, Ella Mackenzie, in that first chapter, but I think anyone who has ever been involved with planning a wedding will be able to sympathize with Ella.

Most of my friends are married now, so my bridesmaid days and all the wonderful book fodder they provided have come to an end. However, I had such a great time writing the wedding in The Secret Mistress Arrangement, don’t be surprised if more weddings show up in later books. Give me some inspiration by sharing your favorite (or worst, depending how you look at it, I guess) wedding snafu!

Oh, and to celebrate the release of my first book, I’m running a couple of contests this month. Visit my website for details.

Kimberly

Labels: celebrity weddings, guest blogging, wedding planners

8 Comments:

Playground Monitor said...: I had an almost-snafu. When the DH and I got married, he was walking around in the church basement to work off his nervous energy. He felt something on the bottom of his shoe and thought he'd stepped into some gum. He looked, and on the sole of his shoe were the letters H and E in white adhesive tape. He looked at the other shoe and it had L and P on it. He yanked off the tape and realized you could still see the letters because the shoes were new and the soles had scuffed around where the tape had been. So he went outside and rubbed his shoe soles against the sidewalk to scuff where the tape had been.

My mother's best friend assured me she'd never have let him walk down the aisle with the tape on his shoes but... shudder

Needless to say, when my son got married, I kept telling him "Check your shoes. Check your shoes. Are your shoes okay?"; January 6, 2009 at 5:59 AM
Lynn Raye Harris said...: PM, ROFL!!!!

I don't think I had any almost disasters. I was so darn clueless and so young that simply being the center of attention on that day was pretty neat. But we didn't have a traditional wedding in the sense of picking out napkins and etc. We were married in Germany, so we actually married the day before we walked down the aisle (the legal ceremony). The church wedding was for show. :) So I was already married and not really too upset about anything. :)

We had swords at our wedding, so imagine how that could have gone wrong.... ;); January 6, 2009 at 8:45 AM
Andrea Laurence AKA Smarty Pants said...: So, PM, did you ever find out who put "HELP" on DH's shoes? I'd kill him. You all didn't happen to kneel for part of the ceremony. That would be awesome. I mean awful. :)

I'm always the one at weddings keeping the bride from flipping out and barking orders at everyone. Someone has to do it. As far as I know, there are no snafus... just challenges.

(Someone remind me of that when I get married and start to freak out over lavender vs. lilac napkins, please.); January 6, 2009 at 10:37 AM
Anonymous said...: Hey Y'all,

PM, I'd kill whoever did that as well. But at least you caught it before any kneeling was done...

I think I like the German way, Lynn. It removes a little of the stress.

SP, I will be at your wedding, clipboard in hand, ready to sort out any snafus. But can we negotiate on the lilac...?; January 6, 2009 at 10:46 AM
Anonymous said...: Just wanted to say "Hi Kimberly". Congratulations on your debut.
robertsonreads; January 6, 2009 at 1:51 PM
Brandy said...: Hubs and I were married secretly six months before our Wedding. Luckily there was no snafu. And I'm sorry, but I'm laughing over the tape on the shoes!; January 6, 2009 at 2:19 PM
Playground Monitor said...: I'm sure it was one of the groomsmen. Or maybe all of them plotting together. And yes, there was part of the ceremony where we knelt at the altar. Had he not discovered the tape and the word HELP been flashed to the congregation, I would have been sending the guilty party a bill for the entire wedding.; January 6, 2009 at 3:22 PM
Melissa McClone said...: These stories are very funny!

Thanks for stopping by the WPs today, Kimberly! I can't wait for your book to go on sale in the US!

Melissa M; January 6, 2009 at 6:20 PM