Sister of the Bollywood Bride by Nandini Bajpai — Wedding Chaos and Family Love!

It’s time for a Big Indian wedding … completely organised by a 17-year-old!

As you can imagine, this book has all the family love, chaos, and wedding prep shenanigans you could ask for. It felt like a step-by-step guide on how to organise an Indian wedding, as we follow Mini through the entire process of figuring out how to host for her big sister, Vinnie, who is too busy with medical school to focus on it. Mini’s obsessed with being sure her sister has the perfect Indian wedding, because their mum passed away when they were young and Mini feels that aching gap constantly. She doesn’t want Vinnie to skip the wedding so — BOOM. You have the 17-year-old in charge.

She is stressed!! But she’s got this (maybe).

WHAT TO EXPECT

• The story is 90% wedding!! So get ready to hash out details with Mini and chase around looking for venues and catering.
• (…and running into cute boys on accident)
• It’s packed with Indian culture (Mini’s family is Punjabi) and they talk a lot about different regions and expectations there.
• Lots of things go wrong and I felt quite stressed for Mini 🥺 This is a huge task and sometimes she felt very overwhelmed. She also had so much responsibility with managing thousands of dollars and trying to book last minute.
• There’s some sad moments as Mini is still trying to fit herself into a world without her mother.
• There is a small but nice romance with Vir, not the focus of the plot but still adds in some of that romcom drama.
• LOTS of focus on family, on making up with estranged relatives too.
• Also community. Every time Mini felt alone with the prep, she turned around and found people from her community willing to lend a hand, over her a deal, or give advice.

Something about holding the jewelry Mom had left us made me want to make sure Vinnie had a rocking Punjabi wedding. One Mom would approve of. “I could do it.” It was true. I had over two months of summer vacation.

The book’s tone is quite light, so it was a very quick read. I admit the amount of exclamation marks wore on me and made the tone seem very young. I would have liked to see some more personal depth to Mini’s journey too and I didn’t feel we got to know Vir?

Overall a fun, light read about community and family coming together for a glittering celebration of love and culture.

Thank you to Allen & Unwin for the review-copy! Out June, 2021.

For fans of Morgan Matson’s Save the Date and Sandhya Menon’s When Dimple Met Rishi (streaming as Mismatched on Netflix) comes a fun and lighthearted novel about one teen’s summer tackling disasters including, but not limited to, family, romance, and weather – as she plans her sister’s Bollywood-style Indian wedding.
Mini’s big sister is getting married. Their mom passed away seven years ago and between Dad’s new start-up and Vinnie’s medical residency, there’s no one but Mini to plan the wedding. Dad raised her to know more about computers, calculus and cars than desi weddings but from the moment Mini held the jewelry Mom left them, she wanted her sister to have the wedding Mom would’ve planned.
Now Mini has only two months to get it done and she’s not going to let anything distract her, not even the persistent, mysterious and smoking-hot Vir Mirchandani. Flower garlands, decorations, music, even a white wedding horse – everything is in place.
That is, until a monster cyclone heads for Boston that could ruin everything. Will Mini come through as sister of the bride and save the day?

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