4⭐️
The day before Freya Scott’s wedding she is dumped, in a broom closet more specifically. Still, just because a relationship ends doesn’t mean your entire life pauses, in fact she has the wedding season ahead of her. Filled with all of her friend’s weddings, Freya doesn’t know how she’ll survive this summer. That is until her best friends come up with a fun bucket list of one task per wedding to distract her. And, of course, the distraction in the form of the cute guy that seems to be invited to most of the weddings, Jaime. As Freya deals with losing who she thought was the love of her life and completing a list of slightly ridiculous tasks, she slowly rediscovers who she is without any man relying on her or hand to hold.

Freya is the perfectly relatable main character. She’s sarcastic and quick as hell, but after the shitstorm that was her last relationship, she’s also scared and more careful in love. She doesn’t fall head over heels for Jaime and immediately forget what happened only a few weeks ago. Instead she takes the time to rediscover who she is without a partner: a bad cook, slightly better gardener, and someone brave enough to go to seven weddings having been dumped the day before her own not that long ago.

In order to travel through the entire wedding season, which lasts for months, the author skips around the scenes to only the necessary ones. We did get some extra scenes in Freya’s friendship with Ruby and Leo and I loved the ones with just Freya taking time to heal, but some felt like random scenes picked. Some of the tasks weren’t even written, just told that they happened. I wish we got more of the actual weddings, but that may also be what I was expecting and then didn’t really receive which is throwing me off.

This book was both a cutesy feel-good romance and not a romance simultaneously. Throughout the book we see Freya reclaim her own identity and watch her slow healing after the end of a 12 (!!) year relationship. The scenes with Ruby and Leo made me laugh out loud and the commitment they have to standing by Freya made me smile so hard.

The ending felt a little rushed, as if we got the entire lead up and then promptly cut off after the first kiss kiss. I was thoroughly enjoying their playful banter and the lead up so I was slightly disappointed that most of it was just flirty back and forth. Overall though, this was a fun lighter read with an emphasis on healing and friendship with the perfect little sprinkle of romance I loved.

Special thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the chance to read this book in exchange for my honest review.

“When you get dumped the day before your wedding in a broom cupboard, suddenly everything seems a bit shit.”

The Wedding Season is a fun and humorous women’s fiction book about a hard topic: being dumped the day before your wedding. After being with Matthew for 12 years, Freya has to get through Wedding Season by herself. Luckily, she has an amazing family and group of friends to help her move forward.

I really enjoyed this book! I loved watching Freya let loose, seek out new hobbies, be awkward, and forge new and remade relationships. Ruby and Leo are absolutely the best, and I was glad that their wedding was the one to close out Wedding Season. This book is charming and delightful while also giving a lovely reminder that we need to surround ourselves with people “love each other, guide each other, don’t give up on each other” and “don’t let each other give up on ourselves.”

Thanks to St. Martin’s Griffin for this ARC!

Seems like a great book to read if you do. And the cover is really pretty definitely would but it for the soul purpose of it!

Freya has it all together - in life and in love...until the day before her wedding when her fiancé Matthew calls it off in a broom closet. As Freya has to navigate living alone, finding hobbies, and being single for the first time in over a decade, her friends create a list of challenges she must complete in order get through the "wedding season" of the seven weddings she's invited to or participating in the bridal party. The challenges help Freya find herself, what she really wants in love, re-develop a relationship with her estranged mother, and maybe even a new love interest. I enjoyed the story/characters. This is the second book I've read by Katy Birchall and I am officially a fan. Thanks to NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

What do you do if you were dumped the day before your wedding? And had to attend MULTIPLE weddings in the aftermath? Make list of crazy things to do to survive! This is the sweetest story of how to live your life after it has been crushed.

Katy Birchall was an author I was introduced to last year with her book The Secret Bridesmaid! I absolutely loved the plot in this book! It was so fun and the challenges were hilarious! I don't think it is a romance but fun nevertheless!
*Thank you so much to the publishers for gifting me an early release copy to give an honest review. My opinions are my own*

The Wedding Season was a cute and fun read about friendship and the impact great friends can have during the sad and difficult times in our lives. I loved Ruby and Leo, and Freya’s dad. They added so much to this book and I honestly wish more of the book was dedicated to them.
Sadly, I feel this is mislabeled as a romance. The main love interest doesn’t even get introduced until almost a quarter of the way into the book and then we don’t see him often enough to really get to know him. It almost felt like there was too much going on and that the author needed to pick one aspect to focus on. Either the friends and tasks or learning to love again.
I did love how we got to see Freya grow and learn to be herself through this book.

Thanks to NetGalley for an eARC f this book in exchange for my honest review.

Although not appropriate for my classroom, this novel was great! As a romance lover, I really enjoyed it. I am looking forward to purchasing a hard cover for my personal library!

This book was just full of cute rom-com goodness. Freya was a strong and amazing protagonist. The plot was just sooooo cute!
The setting was great and WHO DOES NOT LOVE A WEDDING. it was perfect. The writing was humorous. It had me laughed out loud a couple of times. The side characters were all good but also felt bland to me at some points.
Last but not the least, loved the cover too. If you like cute sweet fluffy romcom with humor then go for it.

Like a hug, The Wedding Season is warm and comforting. It reads like a rom-com movie rather than a rom-com book: it’s predictable in the best of ways but never overly simplistic, and Birchall's subtle humor is completely charming. Freya is a strong protagonist with a solid developmental arc, an incredibly human character the reader will root for all the way.

The pacing of the novel, however, is quite slow, and the progression of the plot feels formulaic at times. The secondary characters, while all delightful, tend to blend into a monolith; I wasn’t completely sure how to differentiate between Freya’s friends. I also found myself comparing The Wedding Season to Bad Luck Bridesmaid, especially when considering the weaker plot lines centering on Freya and Jamie.

But even these flaws are quite minor compared to the novel as a whole. This may not be the novel for someone who is looking for a little more emotional depth and heartache in their library, but it certainly is a good choice for a slow, relaxing rainy-day read. (I also can't express how wildly excited I was to see a National Treasure reference; sometimes it feels like maybe Freya and I are the only appreciators of this absolute powerhouse 2003 movie starring Academy-Award-winning actor Nicholas Cage. Thank you, Katy Birchall, for reminding me that it's time for a rewatch.)

Thank you to St. Martin’s Press and NetGalley for providing me with a copy of this novel in exchange for an honest review.

From the first paragraph, I knew this book would be a good one. I immersed myself into the book from the first chapter and I cannot say enough good things about this book! Honestly amazing! The writing is incredible and the plot is just one to die for. I am absolutely obsessed with this book. My favorite part would have to be the character development throughout the book. Character development is something I look forward to and this book did not disappoint.

The Wedding Season by Katy Birchall is the perfect way to spend a spring day. Freya is an immensely likable protagonist along with her best friends Ruby and Leo. But unfortunately for Freya, she finds herself stood up by her fiancé Matthew the day before her wedding. The animosity Freya’s friend group has towards Matthew as soon as the wedding is called off, endears them instantly towards the reader. As you can imagine, after 12 years Freya is confused and has many questions surrounding the break up and demise of her relationship. In an effort to help Freya through the rest of the “wedding season”—(multiple weddings spanning the spring and summer)—Ruby and Leo devise the perfect solution to Freya’s depression and anxiety: a task list to keep Freya’s mind occupied. In my mind, this is where the book really took off. The task list moves the novel along with Freya learning more about herself and her friends as she completes each task. The vast majority of this book dealt with Freya’s feelings and insecurities about what it means to go from a solid relationship to not even communicating with your ex and having zero closure. I thought that Birchall did a solid job of creating a friend group that helped Freya through her struggle with learning how to not be part of a pair anymore. The tasks Freya has to complete at each wedding run from not-so-challenging to heart-stopping anxiety. I think everyone wishes they had friends like Freya that really care about her well-being. I also enjoyed how each wedding played off the next with the reader discovering more about Freya and seeing how each task plays out. No spoilers here, but I LOVED the new love interest and way he is introduced. He is a natural foil to Freya’s “sensible and sturdy” self.
Side note: For those that only like romance books with spice, this book is definitely LOW steam. It’s more about Freya’s story (which I loved) and the romance was secondary to her development. But as love stories go, this was more real life to me and still very enjoyable, without the spice. I imagine Katy Birchall will continue to write solid live stories and can’t wait to read more from her in the future. A big thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for an ARC of the Wedding Season in exchange for my unbiased review.

So this was delightful. I am going to warn readers though, if you are expecting a lot of romantic scenes, they are not in this book. But I thought this was a very nice enemies to lovers book. I loved the main character of Freya, her two best friends, Ruby and Leo, and her dad and her brother. The whole book really spoke to me about the power of friendship (shut up, stop laughing). And it honestly made me miss my best friends in PA. I am definitely going to be on the lookout for anymore of Katy Birchall's books in the future. 

"The Wedding Season" follows Freya Scott. Freya is excited that she's about to marry her longtime boyfriend Matthew. However, the day before the wedding, Matthew tells her he can't do this because she's such a responsible and sturdy person and he's emotional and all over the place and leaves Freya. Freya is left shattered because she has been with Matthew for 12 years, and doesn't understand how he just stopped loving her. Freya doesn't know how she's supposed to go on and is dreading going to 7 upcoming weddings over the summer months. However, Freya's best friends, Ruby and Leo decide they are going to make a list of challenges that Freya must do at the weddings in order to show herself and also her ex Matthew, she's not the boring person he alluded to when they broke up. 

I loved Freya. I honestly wanted to kick Matthew really hard somewhere not so nice as well. Birchall is able to show us the many sides to Freya in this one and I felt for her trying and searching to figure out why Matthew left her, and feeling for her as she hoped he would come back to her. You get to see why/when she fell in love with him and the moments big and small they had through their 12 years together. But it was also great we got to see how Freya's friends and family supported her. And also how hard it is to untangle yourself from someone you were with for a very long time. 

Ruby and Leo were great together and you can see why they became a couple. I also loved how fiercely they supported Freya. 

Freya's other friends, Simone, Cali, and Niamh, are very supportive, and just felt real to me throughout the book. 

Matthew, though he's the villain in the piece, I had a different perspective towards the end, and mostly because of Freya's mother. 

The love interest was great though and I laughed at all of their scenes together. In fact, I think this is the most I have cracked up while reading a romance in a while. The scene where Freya's boss talks to her about doing the trapeze had me giggling throughout. 

The writing was great and I loved how Birchall incorporated different things such as texts and the list to tell the story. Thank you for making the other text legible by the way. One of my pet peeves is when a book changes the font and makes it so hard for me to switch my brain back and forth. This one didn't have that issue.

I really enjoyed the ending. I do know some fans/readers won't be happy that we didn't get to see more, but it's definitely a Happily Ever After (HEA).

I loved this rom-com! It definitely was more slow burn than I usually read but the story is so cute and funny it kept me flying through the pages!

Thank you Netgalley and St Martin's Press for inviting me to read and review this book! All thoughts and opinions are my own.

I wasn't sure if I was going to like or enjoy this book but overall I thought it was a sweet read. We meet Freya who is getting married and then is dumped by her fiancé. Reeling from grief and hurt, Freya's friends try to distract her while attending seven other weddings during, you guessed it, the wedding season.

I wouldn't consider this book to be a full-fledged rom com. I think the cover gives off vibes of being a fluffy read with hijinks but there is a more serious tone through the book. I did feel for Freya and understood her pain of being left at the altar. We do spend most of the book dealing with her grief and some blossoming romance towards the end.

I did like the writing and felt like I was there with Freya through it all instead of just reading about it.

3.5 stars

I'm a new fan of Katy Birchall because I love the dialogue she writes! The story itself could you some help, but I adored all the fun banter between the characters.

Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC for an honest review.

This was an enjoyable read for me. But, in my opinion it fits the bill of women fiction more than for the romance. I liked the MC but at times I just wanna shake her and wanted to get her out the haze that she seems to might be in. I really liked the friendship among the girls, left me all green with envy. The secondary characters were so fun and relatable. However, I find the beginning a little slow for me; nonetheless it’s a 3.75 stars read for me,

The Wedding Season is branded as a "Romance" but I wouldn't go that far.... it is a great story of personal growth and finding one's own way with a sprinkle of love mixed in. If you're looking for slow burns and spice, then this isn't the book for you. But if you're looking for strong female friendships and a MC who learns to love herself - The Wedding Season is your book! I liked Freya... but did't really connect with her. She felt a little too agreeable to me - I wanted her to have more of a backbone and stand up for what she wanted. But that's just my personal take on her - she is a lovely person and I did enjoy her journey of self discovery.

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press, St. Martin's Griffin for the ARC of this book in exchange for my honest review.

I am a huge sucker for a sweet romance, strong friendships, and great character growth and this book had all of those things. Absolutely loved this book and will recommend to all my romance loving friends! This is the second book I’ve read by Katy Birchall and I can tell that she is going to become an auto buy author for me!

While this is touted as a romance/comedy, I’d have to disagree. This was definitely a story of personal growth, of overcoming unexpected hurdles, with the slightest nip of romance.
I wanted to love the characters. Their bonds, the way they stuck together through the adversity. But I ultimately didn’t really connect with Freya, while I really, really enjoyed Leo & Ruby.
This was good, but not great, at least for someone searching for a romance.