Kate White: Killer Weddings

(CBS)  Being a bridesmaid could be murder. That's what Kate White, editor-in-chief of Cosmopolitan magazine, thought after reporting on hundreds of weddings during her career.

So, she took what she knew about "bridezillas" -- the out-of-control brides, bridesmaids and the wedding industry -- and turned it into her third Bailey Weggins mystery, "'Til Death Do Us Part."

White says her Bailey Weggins character is a true-crime writer turned detective. In her first book, "If Looks Could Kill," White took on the magazine industry. Her second book, "A Body to Die For," took on the spa industry. Now, Weggins must deal with the wedding industry.

She tells The Early Show co-anchor Hannah Storm, "Part of what inspired me is listening to these young women on my staff talking about the ordeal of being a bridesmaid, not only because of the expense of dress and dyed shoes to match, then the bachelorette trip to Vegas and the showers. Then your bride, your friend, morphs into this bridezilla creature that you don't recognize. Hearing these tales made me think this might be a fun venue to attack."

In "'Til Death Do Us Part," Weggins, a bridesmaid in a wedding, gets a call from another bridesmaid who informs her that two other bridesmaids had died in freak accidents. Weggins, who meets many possible suspects, tries to unravel the mystery.

Click here to read an excerpt from "'Til Death Do Us Part."

So is it true that the bride wants everyone else to look horrible so she looks fabulous?

"You have to wonder about that," White says. "Some of that, I think, is what you have available at some of these bridal boutiques, and weddings have gotten out of hand. We want to top the weddings that we've been to. I think now that we have access to coverage of celebrity weddings, we want more customized weddings. We want our wedding to arrive in a speedboat, or hot air balloon, or have doves released when we say our vows. The cookie cutter wedding doesn't cut it anymore."

The worst story she says she heard comes from one of her staff. She says, "She was at a wedding. The bridesmaids had these tendrils around their hair. The bride came out and noticed one bridesmaid had one tendril that was a little longer than the other and picked up a steak knife and then chopped them off to make them even. Of course the bridesmaid is wondering, 'Oh, my gosh, is he she going to murder me?'"

Next for White is to tackle the world of celebrities. She says, "Bailey is going to enter the world of celebrity crime and cover that as a journalist. And that will open a few interesting doors for her."