The Wedding Season follows 32-years-old Freya Scott, a successful brand manager for Suttsworth, the largest alcoholic beverage company in the UK. The story opens with her doing last minutes preparations at the venue for her wedding the next day to Matthew. Unfortunately, Matthew has some unfortunate news for Freya as he cannot go through with the wedding and decides to break up with her despite their twelve years together in a relationship. Not only does he call off the wedding, but he also wants to cut off all contact with Freya. Naturally, this leads Freya to wonder how this happened to her, how she is going to move forward in her own life, and how she is going to survive being a part of seven weddings that are taking place beginning soon. As each wedding is for one of her friends or family members, she does not want to let them down.

The story begins a little slow as Freya is trying to initially get through the shock of the break-up. She is still living in the place that she and Matthew shared, which leads her to reminisce about the past. She is also attempting to come up with a game plan since Matthew will be in attendance at some of the upcoming weddings. Luckily, Freya is not alone as she has her brother and father plus her friends, especially her best friends, engaged couple, Leo and Ruby. Together, Leo and Ruby devise challenges to help Freya make it through the Wedding Season. At each wedding, Freya will be required to complete one challenge that includes being the last one standing, obtaining a pair of cufflinks, getting a goodnight kiss, running down a corridor naked, making a speech, and one to be determined later. The main story moves forward as Freya attends the seven weddings that take her all around Europe from the UK to Ireland to France.

The weddings themselves were fun as each fit the couple and I loves Freya’s journey to learning more about her. Throughout the process, she does a lot of comparisons and analyses of her past relationship with Matthew. As an outsider, there are minor moments where you want her to hurry up and move on; however, I enjoyed the slow process as it made a lot of sense for someone to try and recover after being blindsided by someone they loved and planned a future with for twelve years. There is a love interest introduced later on in the story and this relationship was sweet as it built itself up slowly. Some readers may have found their relationship lacking, but I enjoyed their “happy for now”-type process compared to something more definitive. I liked the moments where Matthew showed up again in Freya’s life as it was interesting watching her grow in how she interacted with him. Overall, this story was very heartwarming with moments of humor. Freya was a character that I wanted to root for and I greatly enjoyed reading about her journey.

**I want to give a special thank you to Netgalley and the publisher, St. Martin’s Griffin, for a review copy of this entertaining and enjoyable novel. The opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.**

Loved loved loved this romcom! The story of a jilted bride embarking on a series of challenges to overcome her heartbreak completely won me over!

Love can find us when we least expect it.

The Wedding Seasons is a story of healing, inner strength, and friendships. The beginning was a bit rough to get into but soon the reading flowed, and I really enjoyed the read. Ruby and Leo are her two best friends and I loved their relationship with Freya and each other. They really got her through her summer full of weddings and the wedding plan was brilliant. I liked how Freya’s character grew and she discovered that she had guts and realized that she’s going to be okay. Her somewhat enemy to friends’ relationship with Jamie progressed wonderfully and gave some comic moments. I was rooting for them since they first met. A good read!

Reviewed by Comfy Chair Books/Lisa Reigel (March 24, 2022)
ARC provided by publisher via Netgalley

Thanks Netgalley for allowing me to read this book. Freya is excited about marrying Matthew. Freya is heartbroken and is unsure how to be happy. Her friends come up with different challenges for Freya that take her mind off Matthew. This was a great book.

The Wedding Season was a sweet read that turned out to be different than I expected. I was thinking that there was going to be a heavy focus on the romance but really a lot of the story was based around Freyas growth and journey. I found myself laughing with her on the different challenges she embarked on and hurting for her during her lows. I wish I could see what life was like after her final challenge a little more but it was a good close to the book. The Wedding Season by Katy Birchall publishes May 2022. Thank you Netgalley for the eARC in exchange for a review.

Brief Synopsis:
On Freya’s wedding day her fiancé decided he didn’t want to get married and breaks up with her. Freya is left shocked, embarrassed and heartbroken. She has seven weddings she needs to attend over the summer and doesn’t know how she will get through them. Her friends come up with a wedding season plan of crazy challenges Freya has to do at each wedding to keep her mind off how broken hearted she is and how she got dumped at her wedding.

My Thoughts:
- Great friendships! Ruby and Leo would do anything for Freya. The wedding season plan they came up with is so funny. I looked forward to how Freya achieved the challenges
- I loved Freya! I was rooting for her. She felt destroyed after the break up but she grew and learned from all the wedding challenges throughout the book and became stronger!
-If you enjoy rom coms with personal growth, true friendships and a sweet romance then this book is definitely for you!


Thank you NetGalley and St Martins Press for this eARC in exchange for my honest review!

The Wedding Season by Katy Birchall is fun and instant rom com classic for any reader. When our FMC has the rug pulled out from under her right before her own wedding to her fiancé and partner of 12 years, she ends up having to rediscovering herself and her own sense of love and identity. What was meant to be the start of the wedding season, Freya is determined to be present for her friends and family. With the help of her friends who create a series of challenges to help her rediscover who she in outside of that past relationship.

The Wedding Season is a romantic comedy by Katy Birchall. The story opens with 32-year-old Freya getting dumped by her 12-year boyfriend, Matthew, on the day before their wedding. Freya is devastated and her father tries to console her while her brother looks for the missing peacocks that he rented for the ceremony. Freya’s former college roommates and engaged best friends, Ruby and Leo, also encourage her to buck up and move on.

Freya is an attractive blonde and a successful Brand Manager with Suttsworth, the largest alcoholic beverage manufacturer in Great Britain. She learns that her friends weren’t crazy about Matthew and think she can do better. Freya realizes that her wedding was the first of eight weddings occurring during the year among their circle of friends and she wonders how she will manage to attend them and appear like she’s doing okay. Ruby and Leo devise a list of assignments for each wedding, so that Freya can focus on her task rather than betting nervous about the wedding.

The first hilarious scene was when Freya returned to the apartment that she shared with Matthew, which he vacated, and she observed what he took. The comedic scenes and funny observations continue throughout the book. The various weddings take place in different locales, so there are travel adventures and new side characters. Freya grows as a person and develops a new romantic interest. Freya is very likeable, and Leo and Ruby are perfect as her loyal-to-death sidekicks.

This is the best breakup romantic comedy that I have ever read! I highly recommend reading this book. Even though the characters are British, the phrasing is easily understood by Americans. I received an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

“The Wedding Season” written by Katy Birchall is a very sweet rom-com. Freya and her fiancé’s wedding is the first one of eight that they will be present at this season. However, the day before her wedding, he dumps her. In order to support her through the difficult wedding season without her fiancé, Freya’s friends come up with a list of challenges for her to complete at each wedding. The book is very cute, and I loved following Freya on her journey to becoming more sure of herself. Thank you NetGalley and publisher for the ARC!

The Wedding Season was one of my most anticipated 2022 reads. For those that don’t know, I loved Katy Birchall’s The Secret Bridesmaid last summer (if you haven’t read it, add it to your tbr).

The Wedding Season, out May 3, is about Freya’s whirlwind summer of weddings, including her own. But when her fiancé calls things off the day before their wedding, her best friends devise a plan where Freya has to complete various tasks over the course of the summer and at the different weddings to help her get over Matthew.

What I liked: Just like The Secret Bridesmaid, romance takes a backseat to the heroine’s journey. Freya goes from heartbroken to finding herself and happiness through a series of dares.

I loved how supportive her friend group is, the novel does a good job highlighting that time when your friends are family, before people get married and have kids.

Leo and Ruby are gems. I like their relationship with each other and Freya. However, all the other friends seem to blend together and aren’t as well developed.

The end acknowledging perfect rom-com movie endings was cute.

What didn’t work for me: The beginning was a little slow but once the novel got into the weddings/dares, I got really into it.

Matthew never deserved Freya - I did not like him from the beginning so I was never rooting for them to get back together. Personally, I wanted Freya to move on a little faster than she does.

Who should read it: You love British women’s fiction and are looking for a book that’s not all romance but also finding yourself after a break-up.

Thank you St Martin for the ARC.

My favorite Katy Birchall book yet. Freya’s fiancé breaks up with her in a cupboard the day before their wedding. She’s got a summer of weddings to attend, and her best friends give her tasks to complete and take her mind off of the breakup. She makes mistakes and reassesses things and learns and grows and meets a man she’s interested in. Just as they get together, the book ends (I hate how all of Birchall’s books do that. At least give us an epilogue for a glimpse in the future!). It’s not groundbreaking stuff but Birchall does it well, and she does a good job of creating a character who’s flawed and also emotionally intelligent, who has good friends and a life that hasn’t completely fallen apart. I like a competent FMC.

I received an ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I enjoyed this book! I think it started a bit slow (minus the massive conflict that happens within the first few pages), but definitely got better as the book progressed!

I LOVED the friendship component of the story; Ruby and Leo were an amazing supporting cast, and the Wedding Season game was awesome. The challenges were creative and funny. Freya as a character grew on me over time, and I appreciated her character development. She went through a major heartbreak, and we got to watch as she climbed out of the darkness that surrounded her and into better days.

I liked the slow-burn romance, too. At first, I didn't realize the love interest was going to be THE love interest! I liked watching the progression of their friendship and interactions. It was a gradual attraction, rooted through feelings of guilt and regret, but it was written so well. There's not a lot of actual romance in the story, but that didn't deter from the plot (in my opinion). To me, this teeters more toward fiction than a romance classification. As someone who almost reads romance books exclusively, this didn't cause me to knock off any stars!

I also liked the underlying tones in the book: a difficult family, navigating life as a single person in their 30's, struggling to find a hobby to enjoy. These are all themes we as readers experience as well, and I appreciate that they were highlighted throughout.

Overall, a good book! After the slower start it became a knockout! I love the author's writing style, too!

Super, super super fun and lighthearted with a bit of romance thrown in. Made me laugh out loud several times. I loved it!

I received this book complimentary from NetGalley but all opinions are my own.
This was sweet - I liked the plot and the friendship of Ruby, Leo and Freya was delightful. You don’t get to know the male lead as well but you are charmed by him. I liked this! I’d read another by this author!

Thank you for an advance copy of The Wedding Season in exchange for my honest thoughts.

Star Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Genre: Contemporary Romance/Women's Fiction
Pub Date: May 3, 2022

I enjoyed this book a lot. I love few things more than a rom-com, and The Wedding Season delivered on all fronts. I felt like the characters had charm and wit, and the romance aspect of the story was a nice, slow burn that kept me hanging on until the end. I really thought the story was cleverly written, and it was honestly the writing style that kept me hooked. I just loved the way this story was written!

My only complaint about this book is that it starts a bit slow; the first 30% or so of the book took a concerted effort for me to stick with it (and you should stick with it). If this wasn't an arc I was reading, I might have DNF'd it over the slow start honestly.

Otherwise, this book gave me all the feels and was a fun read once the story really kicked off!

i am really big fan of wedding themed books, and birchall's the secret bridesmaid was easily one of my favourite women's fic/romance books of 2021 so i absolutely needed to get my hands on the wedding season, and it did not disappoint. the first 20% of the book is actually quite sad, as it focuses on freya's reaction to her longtime boyfriend breaking up with her a day before the wedding. the tone of the book starts changing when freya's best friends ruby and leo write a list of challenges that she has to complete so she can survive all the weddings that she has to attend. the book deals with the end of a long relationship, but in my opinion, the highlights are friendships, especially the one between freya, ruby, and leo, but also the bond between freya, her brother and her father, how she works out her strained relationship with her mother, and obviously the slow burn romance between her and jamie (even though i can't help but wish we had seen a little bit more about them together).

Freya’s life gets turned upside down when her husband to be backs out the day of her wedding. In order to help Freya out of her slump and to get through all of the upcoming weddings she is attending, her friends decide to put together a list of challenges to push Freya out of her comfort zone. Freya must complete one challenge per wedding she attends. Through these challenges Freya embarks on a journey of rediscovering her self and realizes maybe her love story has only just begun.

This was a super cute read that had all of the things I love in a rom com! Amazing best friends, quirky family members, and of course a swoon worthy love interest.

My one and only gripe is that I wish we could have learned more about what went down with the traffic cone!

I was sent a free book and am voluntarily leaving this honest review.

Thank you to NetGalley, St. Martins Press, and Katy Birchall for a free ARC of this book.

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Steam Level: 🔥 (kissing only)
Trigger Warning: divorce, broken engagement

Freya has just been dumped by her fiance, Matthew, the day before the wedding, and now she has seven more weddings to attend while she grieves her own ruined nuptials. In an attempt to help Freya enjoy the festivities and forget about Matthew, her friends come up with a Wedding Season survival checklist- tasks that must be completed at each wedding. Soon Freya finds herself enjoying her new freedom, and she realizes that maybe her previous relationship wasn't as perfect as she once believed. She even starts to believe love might be possible after heartache.

This was such a fun book. I found myself laughing and and smiling throughout the story, and it had the best banter between characters! This book focuses on Freya's grieving and healing process, but it does include a bit of romance too. We get to see her going from devastated to hopeful, and I felt like it gave a really good glimpse at what that kind of breakup would be like for someone. The first half of the book started to drag in a few places, but then it would pick back up and hook me again, and the second half was even better. I really loved Freya's friends and family, but my absolute favorite character was Jamie! He and Freya had great chemistry from the moment they met, and my romance loving heart was secretly wishing we could have had more of him. I soaked up every interaction between those two. I'm definitely looking forward to reading more from Katy Birchall in the future after this one.

Thank you Netgalley for providing me with an ARC of this book!

Freya and Matthew have been together for twelve years. The day before their wedding, Matthew shoves her into a broom closet and tells her they are through. She is devastated, embarrassed, and fearful of the seven weddings she must attend and doesn’t know how she will make it through them. Her friends have devised a set of things she is to accomplish as she attends each wedding. Seven things to do that are out of her comfort zone. They figure this will help her get her thoughts off Matthew.
Freya is hung up on the why’s of them not being together. Matthew has not been specific, so she goes through all sorts of scenarios trying to determine what she did wrong. The tasks she must do at each wedding offer a lot of humor in her sadness. Her friends are so supportive of her feelings and so is Jamie who shows up at some of the weddings. She finds it interesting that Jamie believes she is a fun person and talking with him is so easy.
I really liked this book once we got through all Freya’s sadness. It points out that one can grow from unpleasant happenings. Even her distant relationship with her mother shows progress. The characters are well developed and ones you want to hang around. The wedding destinations offer wonderful settings for the story and the antics of Freya and her friends and family demonstrate community and hope.

I really liked the friendship aspect of this book. There were a few times that I was not understanding the heroine, but I understood her in a way. I liked that romance wasn't the main focus in the book and it was there, but in the background of the heroine discovering herself. I wish we did get a little bit more from the romance, maybe an epilogue, hence the four-star rating. This book had fun characters and dialogue and I enjoyed it. A fun read! ARC on Netgalley.