After working as head designer for Oscar de la Renta, Eugenia Ward started her own company fourteen years ago when she turned forty. She is now a major name in evening gowns and wedding gowns, ready-to-wear and haute couture. But with the fashion business in major downturn, she has recently suffered heavy losses, and Eugenia desperately needs new investors-and new ideas. At the same time, she is matriarch and guiding light to her five adult children, a single mother for over a decade, after her divorce from the spendthrift Italian prince she married young. As the family gathers for a summer vacation at a beach house, wedding plans for her daughter Gloria are ballooning in expense even as the loutish behavior of Gloria's fiancé causes her to question her daughter's judgment. Meanwhile, Eugenia's other daughter Daphne is due to deliver twins right around the wedding date as is the make or break New York's Fashion Week. The silver lining in it all may be meeting Patrick Hughes, a successful real estate developer who's also going through a rough patch. A brilliant and creative businessman, Patrick gives her valuable advice about her business challenges. Eugenia finds friendship with Patrick sailing on his yacht and begins to imagine a new beginning, independent of her roles as mother and entrepreneur. But as the family gathers for the big wedding, tensions are running high, money may be running out, and a hurricane is looming on the horizon.