The Real Deal Wedding Insiders® – Guide to Smart Wedding Planning gives couples practical and actionable steps to take control of wedding planning, make the best decisions, and keep your sanity along the way. Readers will learn how to: * Navigate stressful relationships * Create a vision that represents you both * Understand and build a realistic budget * Choose the right venue and vendors * Stay present and enjoy your wedding day With a combined 30+ years of experience and hundreds of weddings produced, the Real Deal Wedding Insiders® have seen it all. Edna Dratch-Parker, founder and creative director of EFD Creative—Event Planning & Design and partner of 4LUXURE – Premium Wedding Planner Collective®, and Jeri Solomon, owner of Jeri Solomon Floral Design, combine their depth of knowledge and real-life experiences to help on your wedding planning journey.

Karen Fine always knew that she wanted to be a vet and wasn’t going to let anything stop her: not her allergy to cats, and not the fact that in the ’80s veterinary medicine was still a mostly male profession. Inspired by her grandfather, a compassionate doctor who paid house calls to all his (human) patients, Dr. Fine persevered, and brought her Oupa’s principles into her own practice, which emphasizes the need to understand her patients’ stories to provide the best possible care. Woven into Dr. Fine’s story are, of course, also the stories of her own pets: the birds, cats, and dogs who have taught her the most valuable lessons—how caring for the animals in our lives can teach us to better care for ourselves, especially when life seems precarious.

I have been writing ever since I can remember. When I was in grade school, I scribbled short stories to amuse the other kids. In high school, I co-authored a column called The Peculiar Press in the student newspaper. The nature of this feature is self-evident from the title. In today’s litigious climate, much of the content would get us sued for libel. In college, I wrote sports stories for the student newspaper and essays that I thought were screamingly funny for the campus literary magazine. The latter were published because the editor also thought they were humorous gems. Have I mentioned that I was the editor? (The biggest benefit I derived from this was that I met and eventually married the assistant editor.)

During four years in the Navy, my scrivenings were limited to letters written to my fiancé and my parents. When I returned to civilian life, I landed my first newspaper job and began pouring forth a stream of written works that is still running. Many of these gushers have been printed on paper that eventually was used to wrap fish, line bird cages or spank naughty puppies. No matter. Stringing words together always has been fun. I have met scores of interesting people and sometimes my combinations of sentences and paragraphs have produced salutary results.

I’ve heard that truth is stranger than fiction, but the truth is that it is fun to be writing fiction after so many years of ferreting out facts. My biggest hope is that people will enjoy reading my novels as much as I enjoy writing them.