The Wedding Planner's Daughter

The Wedding Planner's Daughter is a children's book by Coleen Murtagh Paratore, published by Scholastic Inc. in 2005.

Plot synopsis

Twelve year old Willa Havisham is a classics reader, a cherry-cordial eater, and a quite possibly the world's worst wisher.

However, when she and her glamorous single mother, Stella, move to Bramble, Cape Cod, Willa's wishes are beginning to come true. She makes her first ever best friend Tina, bonds with her hip, candy making Nana, and, best of all, steely Stella is falling for Willa's English teacher, Sam. Before Willa can marry off her mother, or dance with her adorable crush, Joseph, a pit gets stuck in her wishing well....Can Willa undo the damage?

There is a sequel to it called The Cupid Chronicles and another book after that called "Willa by Heart".

Cast of characters

Willafred "Willa" Havisham

Willa is a tall, skinny, dark blue-eyed, almost thirteen-year-old girl who wished for a father at every birthday. Her father was killed the day after her parents wed.Bill Havisham, Willa's father who is now deceased, wanted to be very romantic and wanted to fly to his honeymoon in a hot air balloon. He never landed. Her name is Willafred, after her father's first and middle name, William and Fredrick. She doesn't believe it is very glamourous and prefers to be called Willa. She's in seventh grade and moved to Cape Cod. Her and her mother have lived in seven different places. She plots for her mother's marriage to the Poet, a.k.a Sam, her English teacher in Cape Cod. Willa loves classic novels and ever since she moved to Cape Cod, she chose this place as her true home. At Cape Cod, she makes various friends; her naturally beautiful and friendly classmate Tina Belle, her lively and hip maternal grandmother Violet "Nana" Clancy (a popular sweets shopkeeper), the kind owner of Bramblebriar bookshop, Mr. Alexander Tweed, and the thirteenth secret ingredient, which happens to be the pit of a cherry from a cordial (which goes awry when the superstar actress, who plays Dora on television, has a wedding Bramble's church minister, the energetic and wise Sulamina Mum. She also befriends Sam Gracemore, her English teacher and neighbor who is passionate with poetry and, as Willa comments, is "perfect dad material". She falls in love with Joseph Kenelley, one of the popular boys in Willa's school, who in return begins to develop an interest to Willa, too. Every time her mother plans a wedding, Willa adds on the beach and the sandmites start attacking her and the cordial in the hem of her dress). In the end, she realises that her true wish was her mother to truly see her, since Stella has been mostly avoiding Willa's gaze because her eyes resembled her late husband's.

Estelle "Stella" Clancy Havisham (Willa's mother)

Stella is "as glamorus as a queen" due to her extremely attractive looks (such as her jet black hair)and her sharp intellectual. She's a wedding planner in every location she chooses. She is renouned for planning the most perfect wedding with her 12 ingredients, which are the gown, the tuxedo and bridal party ensemble, the invitation, the ceremony, the reception, the flowers, the menu, the table settings and favors, the music, the photographer, the cake, the limousine, and the secret ingredient Willa adds is the cherry cordial pit (love). Willa added the pit because her mother's few past weddings were apparently unsuccessful at the days after the wedding day because according to Willa, she never put any love into her work. She feels tragic over the loss of her husband and never considered on having another husband, because she was afraid that she will feel that Horrible tragedy again. That was until she met Sam Gracemore, as they both began to fell in love with each other. She set strict rules in her household and wanted Willa to become a serious woman who won't account on a Prince Charming. Her plan was quite unsuccessful, as Willa grew to be headstrong and a lover for classical English like her father. Not until when Willa ran away to Cape Cod by herself to reunite with her true friends did Stella realize that Bramble was the true place for herself and her daughter and that although the wedding day itself is important, the days after that only concerned on one thing; love. She later eloped with Sam and with her new husband and Willa, they each found their own "happily ever after".

Violet Clancy(Estelle's mother)

Violet(or Nana, as Willafred likes to refer to her as) is Estelle's mother. She works in a candy shop, called "Clancy's" Candy, and she is the manager. In the story, she and Willa try to get Sam Gracemore and Estelle together. In the end, she gets married to Alexander Tweed, the owner of Bramblebriar Books and a fellow friend of Willa.