Ashe too scared to cancel wedding, story becomes hit song

KUALA LUMPUR, 11 OCTOBER 2026 —

The American singer‑songwriter Ashe revealed that her chart‑topping single “Stop The Wedding” was born from a personal crisis that began on her second wedding day in Nashville.

The story began in October of the previous year when Ashe was preparing to marry her partner in a hilltop ceremony in Nashville. While watching her family gather, she recalled her first marriage, which she described as “horrifying.” Her ex‑husband, whom she met in college, was emotionally manipulative and psychologically abusive. He had insisted on a beachfront wedding, a setting that would have been romantic if not for Ashe’s fear of the ocean.

In the run‑up to that wedding, she had been tempted to cancel but felt powerless to stand up for herself. On her second wedding day, however, she realised she was in a happy, healthy relationship and had total autonomy over her own life. “I thought, if this didn’t feel right, I could totally put a halt to the whole thing. I definitely didn’t have that first time around,” she said.

Ashe said that as she adjusted her veil and prepared to walk down the aisle, she filed that feeling away. Two months later, back at work, the idea resurfaced and a song spilled out. “It unfolds like a movie scene. Ashe pleads with her younger self to trust her instincts,” she explained.

The lyrics urge the listener to “know how you really feel / You don’t have to waste your life,” and to “burn the wedding dress and run away.” Ashe laughed that she didn’t actually burn her dress, but “I did get into a bathtub with it for a photoshoot right after I left my ex‑husband, which really ruined it!”

Released in August, “Stop The Wedding” became one of the 10 most‑played songs in the world on Spotify. On Friday it broke into the top five of the UK singles chart, and on TikTok thousands of videos use the track to highlight red flags in their own relationships. “I don’t think I even let myself dream of this,” Ashe said of the song’s popularity.

“It’s something you hope for when you’re first starting out, but when you’ve been in the business for 10 years, it’s a little bit of a shock to the system.”

The success is even sweeter because, three years ago, Ashe nearly quit music altogether. A native of San Jose, she grew up in a conservative household where the radio was permanently tuned to Christian stations. It was her grandad who introduced her to rock music, playing Tom Petty and Bob Dylan on long road trips. By her teens, she was writing her own music.

After studying orchestral composition at Boston’s Berklee College of Music, she moved to Nashville and quickly found work as a songwriter. She scored an early credit on Demi Lovato’s 2017 song “You Don’t Do It For Me Anymore”; but slowly grew frustrated that other people were singing her words.

The decision to become Ashe, whose full name is Ashlyn Rae Willson, didn’t happen overnight. She appeared as a featured vocalist on a handful of dance tracks before plunging into a solo career. “I remember him saying, ‘[After this] no one’s ever going to love you for you. Anyone you meet now is going to meet you as Ashe, and I met you before.’ It was truly manipulative, and it kept me stuck.

It kept me stuck for a long, long time.”

It can’t be a coincidence that a song she wrote after signing her divorce papers became her breakthrough hit. “Moral of The Story” (key lyric: “you can think that you’re in love / when you’re really just in pain”) was released in 2019, and hit one billion streams after appearing in the hit Netflix series To All the Boys: PS I Still Love You.

Ashe was suddenly playing bigger venues and duetting with Niall Horan, but work became all consuming. When her brother died of an overdose in 2020, she was back on stage within a month. “There was so much momentum and I was saying yes to far too many things,” she reflected.

“It got to a point where the idea of touring was giving me panic attacks, and I just couldn’t stomach being Ashe, which is such a shame, because I’m her.”

In 2023, she had a nervous breakdown and stepped away from showbusiness. “I had to halt everything. I bought a house in Nashville, I gardened, I saw a therapist and I gave myself a chance to miss music.” For six months she led a quiet, domestic life. But when pop singer Suki Waterhouse invited her to a session, it rekindled her passion for writing.

She made a tentative return with 2024’s deeply confessional album Wilson, then teamed up with Billie Eilish’s brother Finneas O’Connell to form The Favors, before signing a new deal with Atlantic Records.

Those experiences mean she’s treating the success of “Stop The Wedding” very differently. “You can get swept up by all the updates on your phone, but this time I’m navigating the emotions of that, and also going for a four‑mile walk and calling my mom.” The same can’t be said for her new album, Girl of Your Dreams, which is almost deliriously over the top.

“Stop The Wedding sets the tone, with abrupt tempo changes that track Ashe’s inner turmoil. Lasso The Moon is more whimsical, setting out the star’s outlandish requirements for a new partner.” “God forbid I raise my standards,” she laughs.

“Love Bomb explores the psychology of a manipulative ex (guess who?); while Swan Lake is a comically villainous portrait of Ashe’s possessiveness, complete with a Bugsy Malone chorus line.” It’s a deliberately maximalist record, recalling the lush orchestrations of ELO and The Carpenters, with a nod to the revivalist pop of Ashe’s friend Laufey. “We were so bored of making music that’s boring,” she says.

“It scratches an itch for me as an artist to do something different and not meet the status quo.”

The album ends back at her second wedding. The closing track focuses on the “real, true, constant love” she’s found with musician John Clark Canada. “You’ll be my Tuesday night and my Sunday drive / And the last speech at my funeral,” she sings. Expanding on that idea, Ashe incorporates the ebullient sound of a New Orleans funeral band in the song’s closing moments.

And the person they’re burying is the disillusioned girl from Stop The Wedding.

Ashe’s album Girl of Your Dreams is out on 16 October.