History professor Nick Young defies his mother, Eleanor, to marry his American girlfriend, Rachel Chu, but Eleanor surprises everyone when she shows up at their secret wedding with Rachel's birth father in tow. After meeting her father for the first time, Rachel is surprised to learn she has a younger half brother, Carlton, and she and Nick are soon swept up in Carlton's chaotic life, as well as that of his super-rich, trendsetter girlfriend, Colette. Nick's cousin, Astrid, tries to ignore the flaws in her marriage and the increasingly erratic behavior of her husband even as she confides in an ex-lover, while social climber Kitty Pong attempts to reinvent herself in the hopes of being accepted into the upper echelons of high society.