I found myself in a bit of a reading slump, the books I was picking up left me feeling uninspired, so I just stepped away from reading for a minute. When I was ready again, Espach’s well received The Wedding People seemed like the right choice with which to get right back into reading. And it did the trick. Although I didn’t love it, I really liked it. It’s got the energy of a Hallmark romantic comedy, with characters that are realistic, complex, and a lot of fun, it provides escapism offered by an over-the-top destination wedding set in Newport, Rhode Island, a few heartwarming meet-cutes, along with a newfound friendship between two very different women, and the swerving plot progression- despite the predictability.
Our protagonist, Phoebe Stone’s 12-year marriage has ended. Why? Because her husband, Matt, divorced her to go play house with Phoebe’s work bestie. And, Phoebe’s career has been in limbo for too long. She finds that she isn’t living the life she intended, in fact life kept happening and her good intentions kept on being sidelined. But when her elderly cat, Harry, dies from cancer, that’s when she hits rock bottom. Now, determined to end her life, she books a room at the posh Cornwall- a hotel she’s long wished to visit with her then-husband. But when she arrives at the Cornwall, it is teeming with The Wedding People, who are here for the week-long extravagance that is the Wedding of Garry and Lila- the daddy’s little girl with the million dollar wedding and severe bridezilla tendencies.
As the novel unfolds over the course of the wedding, Phoebe’s world collides with The Wedding People, leading to all sorts of happenstances and self-discovery. Espach examines the complex nature of happiness, love, marriage, and the chaotic nature of weddings. The Wedding People is a story about the power of found family, unexpected connections, and personal growth.
Here are some of my highlights.
- “Love is visible—it paints the air between two people a different color, and everyone can see it.”
- “Life is strange. Always thinking that this one thing is going to make you happy. Because then you get it. And then you’re maybe not as happy as you imagined you would be. Because every day is just every day. Like the happiness becomes so big you have no choice but to live inside it. Until you can no longer see or feel it. And so you start to fixate on something else.”
- “There is no such thing as a happy place. Because when you are happy, everywhere is a happy place. And when you are sad, everywhere is a sad place.”
- “And maybe that’s it: You do things in the moment for the person you hope you might be two years from now. You don’t kill yourself when you are sad because one day you might not be sad, and you might want to go surfing with a man you really like?”