The Wedding People by Alison Espach
Though I’m several months late, Alison Espach’s THE WEDDING PEOPLE, might well be my favorite novel of 2024. Wry, reflective, and filled with wisdom and wit, THE WEDDING PEOPLE tells the story of a cast-off longing to escape life who becomes embroiled in the drama of a bridezilla and her wedding party at a posh Rhode Island hotel.
Phoebe, an academic whose dissertation was on the British wedding plot in literature, has struggled with infertility. She and her husband have endured five rounds of failed IVF. When her husband leaves her for another woman, and her cat succumbs to cancer, she leaves her home in Missouri behind and heads to a seaside resort in Rhode Island to kill herself.
As she checks in, Phoebe learns that all the other guests at the hotel are there for the week-long million-dollar wedding of Lila, a young heiress, and her much older gastroenterologist fiancé, Gary. After giving Phoebe a welcome gift of chocolate wine, she is horrified to learn that Phoebe is not there to celebrate her upcoming nuptials, but rather, has booked the penthouse suite opposite the honeymoon suite for her impending suicide. Lila, the quintessential bridezilla, is determined to convince Phoebe not to end her life – if only because it would be a stain upon her carefully curated and outrageously expensive wedding week.
With nothing left to lose, Phoebe determines that she will be brutally honest. She’s done with people pleasing, because it has gotten her here: alone in a hotel on the shore with a handful of cat sleeping pills, while her husband starts over with a beautiful colleague with a built-in family and a successful career.
But the best laid plans of mice and men often go awry, as another depressive, Robert Burns, attested. Lila is determined that Phoebe will live. As Lila harangues Phoebe about her plans, the two become bonded. When Lila’s maid of honor cancels at the last minute, she asks Phoebe to stand in for her. As Phoebe devotes herself to unwavering honesty, and Lila’s agenda, she discovers that she is more likeable, more approachable, and definitely more attractive. Her intelligence (research for her dissertation exposed her to a broad array of knowledge) becomes something of a magnet for others, who seek her counsel. Her devotion to the truth unbinds her, and her innate humor shines through. Most everyone likes Phoebe – even Gary’s pre-teen daughter Juice, who despises Lila. And Gary, the groom, finds himself drawn to her as well.
Though the novel begins with a dark premise, as Phoebe peels off the layers of other people’s expectations and throws off the anchor of her own failed aspirations, she forms meaningful connections with the wedding people and sees a new possible future for herself.
I did not want THE WEDDING PEOPLE to end. I delighted in Phoebe’s awakening and even understood Lila’s obnoxious behavior by the end. I rooted for Phoebe and Lila and Gary and Juice and cheered for new beginnings.
