Dear Reader,
What is your favorite part of attending a wedding? Is it the music as someone walks down the aisle, or have you prepped in anticipation of performing the cha-cha slide at the reception? Maybe you enjoy the fact that you get to dress up (or dress down depending on the ceremony) Well . . . not to be THOSE people but dessert is certainly on our minds during wedding season. In Susie Dumond’s Queerly Beloved, Amy gives us a special peek behind the curtain of what it’s like to bake wedding cakes and be the perfect bridesmaid.
July [pretend it’s July, not August, we know we’re late :’)] is a wonderful reminder that the best time to read a queer rom-com is–all of the time. While rainbow flags still hang in our favorite bars and the parade confetti has been swept away, we can still be reminded that queer stories exist outside the scope of pride month. Whether you’ve finished binge-watching Our Flag Means Death or are delightfully picking apart each scene in Dickinson, we can’t help but declare that our favorite queer stories fall into the realm of the romantic-comedy.
In Queerly Beloved, when Amy meets Charley, it’s natural. Our leading lady is working overtime at both her job at an uber-conservative bakery and the gay bar down the street. She’s exhausted, worn slap out, and then Charley walks in. Cute, charming, a regular fish out of water after moving to Tulsa, Oklahoma. We can’t help but be swept away by this realistic meet cute.
Amy - Annabel’s Birthday Cake by Marissa Zappas
Notes: freshly baked cupcakes, hopeless romantics, and eyeing the new cutie in town
A fragrance fit for our favorite baker, Annabel’s Birthday Cake is sweet, but not overly so. It opens with notes of sugar reminiscent of making strawberry and champagne cupcakes for a certain someone, lemon, heliotrope, and latex. The middle notes are a perfect confection of whipped cream, sugar, and a few floral notes of rose and tuberose to round out the sweetness for when Amy is saving the day on floral arrangements. We finish with honeycomb, tonka bean, and cacao pod to make this a truly elevated gourmand.
After meeting Charley and feeling the rush that comes with first date jitters, Amy is forced to sit through another hetero family wedding. Ever since she came out years ago—every family event feels more unwelcome than the last. There she meets two strangers, and by the end of the night, she is hired to be a stand-in bridesmaid for their upcoming wedding. Turns out Amy is quite the natural.
Charley - Santal 33 by Le Labo
Notes: saving the environment, exploring new cities, and falling for the girl at the bakery
Woody and aromatic, Santal 33 has notes of sandalwood and cedar, with leathery amber goodness. It smells like meeting the cute girl as the bakery is closing and dreaming of homemade pasta in her kitchen. The fragrance also has notes of cardamom, iris, and papyrus making it warm, creamy, and ultimately comforting, like arms you can run into when a wedding goes south.
That opportunity turns into another, which drops Amy into the middle of the wedding industry at a time when she and her other queer friends can’t legally get married. Complicated doesn’t even begin to describe the emotions that rise to the surface. How can she support an industry that doesn’t see her love as valid? How can she be a rom-com lover, when the stories never reflect hers?
Ruby Red’s - Crush Crush Crush by Sixteen92
Notes: friends that become family, nostalgia, and running into your exes
The sugary, booziness of Crush Crush Crush smells like drinking bourbon on the rocks at Ruby Red’s while prepping signs of rainbow flags for the latest protest for marriage equality. The scent has notes of orange rock candy, whipped marshmallow fluff, and toasted sugar that smell like late nights with your best friends that are more like your family. The scent finishes with a vanilla dry down that leaves you with the nostalgic contentedness that only your favorite bar can make you feel.
Meanwhile, word spreads at The Daily Bread that Amy (who everyone just assumed was straight) is a lesbian and gets fired in an act of blatant homophobia. Amy bounces back quickly and is inspired to start becoming a professional bridesmaid, while things are both heating up and cooling down with Charley at the same time.
Zero Anniversaries – Bubble Bath by Replica
Notes: champagne, spa days, and amy’s laugh
Light a candle and let the steam of a warm bath fill your lungs while taking a bite of one of Amy’s strawberry champagne cupcakes. Soft and floral, this scent begins with pink peppercorn and bergamot before drying down into rose, lavender, and jasmine before finishing with hints of white musk and coconut. Warning: spraying this scent might lead you to stress buying two dozen cupcakes to talk to the baker you’ve fallen hard for.
Queerly Beloved is its own spin on the rom-com with drag shows, spontaneous exes showing up, and becoming your own in a red state where queerness thrives in its own community despite state legislature building roadblock after roadblock. While some of the romance takes a back seat to Amy’s personal growth and embracing of her own queer identity, Charley makes for a perfect match for Amy. This book will make you want to sprint to your favorite dive bar with all your best friends and super cute crush.
Until next time, find us on Instagram & TikTok.
Scent-cerely,
Cassie & Taylor
P.S Our August theme is “Definitely Not About Your Celebrity Crush”