How Ashe’s ‘Stop the Wedding!’ Became Her Biggest Hit: ‘There Are No Rules Here’

When Atlantic Records A&R executive Kelly Sayer set her sights last year on signing Ashe, her gears were already turning on how to get their mutual friend, songwriter-producer Noah Conrad (Role Model, Olivia Rodrigo, Chappell Roan), involved as well. Conrad notably collaborated with Ashe on her 2019 breakthrough single, “Moral of the Story” — the pop musician’s debut Billboard Hot 100 entry that later added Niall Horan to its remix — though the two hadn’t teamed up since her 2022 full-length, Rae. Ashe, 33, then took a step back to focus on her health and had most recently released a joint album with friend FINNEAS as duo The Favors. But as Ashe started thinking of her next solo project, Sayer was putting her plan in motion. As Conrad, 31, recalls her asking him: “Can I get you guys back together? I feel like that’s where the magic is.”

Though Ashe’s Atlantic deal wasn’t officially announced until this June, she had already started to link up with Conrad six months prior, as they began to craft her fourth solo full-length, The Girl of Your Dreams, released Oct. 16. And when the two met up again during Grammy week in Los Angeles in late January, Ashe arrived with the foundation of what’s now the biggest hit of her career, the sweeping, ABBA-esque ballad “Stop the Wedding!”

“She had a basic shape of the chorus,” Conrad says. “It was a rough idea that she played for us, and then we took that and ran with it.”

Inspired by Ashe’s first marriage, lyrics such as “Even though the table’s set, the guests are waiting/You can burn the dress and run away” illustrate that it’s never too late to heed a relationship’s warning signs. (Ironically, the idea came to her the day she married her now-husband, indie-rock musician John Canada.)

With Conrad playing piano and Ashe and co-writer Annika Bennett on the couch singing, the three built out the single — and the track’s frenetic nature quickly emerged, highlighted by dramatic tempo changes.

“It was sort of this feeling of, ‘Is that allowed?’ ” Conrad says with a laugh, pointing specifically to the final chorus, which slams on the brakes before exploding into a fast-paced flurry. “And we were like, ‘Yeah, we can do whatever we want. There are no rules here!’ ”

Released Aug. 7 as The Girl of Your Dreams’ lead single, “Stop the Wedding!” quickly resonated with listeners, particularly on TikTok. Ashe’s pinned post, a lip-syncing clip with the caption “how it feels finding out women are actually reconsidering their relationships because of this song,” has more than 24 million views on the platform; at least three other posts she’s made with the track in the past two months have each eclipsed the same mark. The song entered the Hot 100 in mid-September and climbs to a No. 23 high on the chart dated Nov. 7. On the Billboard Global 200, the smash becomes her first top five hit.

The Girl of Your Dreams — executive-­produced by Conrad — also debuted at No. 20 on the Billboard 200, the highest mark of Ashe’s career. Conrad says the decision to team up for the full project early in the process lightened the pressure he felt, and helped lead to memorable moments such as landing the guitar and vocal for the aching “Sunburn” in one take and putting his jazz trumpet pedigree to good use on standout closer “Funeral.”

“There’s so much trust there,” he says. “It allows you to be comfortable to try stuff. If there’s not a super deep relationship there, sometimes it feels like the first 70% of producing a project is still kind of like me trying to get the gig in a way.”

Conrad is elated to see Ashe back in the public sphere in such a significant way. But he also celebrates what he jokingly calls his primary goal: “Make something that I can put my AirPods in, go for a walk around my neighborhood and be like, ‘Yeah, this feels awesome.’

“People hearing it is the part you can’t really control,” he continues. “But when we finished ‘Stop the Wedding!’ I remember internally being like, ‘I think this is the best thing I’ve ever made.’ ”