Mint to Be: Wedding Books, from Planning Guides to Romance Novels

This is truly the best book on wedding planning I could get my paws on. It’s a list of more than 500 tips, but each one is given a mere paragraph or two of explanation. It breaks down budgets, traditions, and the aftermath, like how to change your name and not lose your rings while on your honeymoon.

From the creator of the most comprehensive website for LGBTQ wedding planning, equallywed.com, this book covers it all. Kirsten Ott Palladino walks us through every aspect of the wedding day, from incorporating hot trends to dealing with homophobic family members. Equally Wed is special in its complete absence of heteronormative language. Because weddings are for everyone.

The Offbeat Bride is perfect for anyone not following the patriarchal, heteronormative traditions around weddings. Ariel Meadow Stallings shares the story of her own nontraditional wedding and offers advice from others who said no thank you to a garter toss.

Did you know the wedding industry is worth about $160 billion in the U.S.?

In One Perfect Day, Rebecca Mead digs in to the wedding industry and all its glitz and glory. With investigative journalism and social commentary, she interviews wedding planners, employees of department stores with wedding registries, and, of course, wedding dress designers to get the inside scoop on why weddings are so lavish.

This beautiful book is a collection of essays telling the stories of various LGBT couples and their weddings. Broken up into sections by way of stages of a relationship — engagement, planning, ceremony, reception, happily ever after party — Sarah Galvin tells each couples’ story of love, challenges, and lessons learned.

Okay, nearly every book in this series by Jasmine Guillory is about or adjacent to a wedding. But The Wedding Party is my favorite. Maddie and Theo are Alexa’s two best friends, and they hate each other. When they’re both tasked with bridal party duties, they end up spending an uncomfortable amount of time with each other…and then sneak off into closets to hook up. It’s a fun enemies-to-lovers romance!

Divorce attorney RJ officiates an unplanned wedding in a park (what?) and a video of the ceremony goes viral, making her a sought-after officiant. She obliges, but there’s a downside: the wedding planner she has to work with, Lear, is a total dude-bro. They loathe each other, and yet, despite their best efforts to remain off-limits, they find themselves leaning into each other.

Wedding murder mystery? Yes, please.

Meddelin Chan accidentally killed her blind date. Her mom and several aunties try to help her get rid of the body, but of course, that’s a bigger task than they imagine. It was in a cake cooler and shipped off to the massive wedding Meddy and her family are working…oops. Then Meddy’s great college love shows up amid the chaos, making her to-do list extraordinarily long: hide body, don’t get arrested, charm ex-lover, and also pull off a fabulous wedding.

Carolina Santos is a top-tier wedding planner in D.C. and lands a major client. The downside? She has to work with the brother of the groom who left her at the altar. She and Max both need this client to further their careers, so they bite the bullet and shoot daggers with their eyes instead. But then there are sparks between them. And we all know how that goes.

Angsty Delilah Green begrudgingly goes to her hometown to photograph her stepsister’s wedding. She’s only there for the paycheck. But then she sees Claire Sutherland — one of her stepsister’s besties — and has other plans. Claire’s a single mom and runs her family’s bookstore, leaving little time for romance. The two are brought together for a series of endless pre-wedding activities and find the other irresistible. Delilah Green Doesn’t Care is a delightful queer romance with two women discovering who they really are.