Book Review: The Wedding People by Alison Espach

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My Review

I know you’re not supposed to judge books by their cover, but I was so drawn to this one. I first saw The Wedding People sitting on a shelf in a Welcome Break WHSmith last August. I didn’t buy the book then, but I finally got the chance to read it on Libby this August, and I certainly did wish I had gotten around to reading it sooner.

Phoebe arrives at a luxurious hotel in Newport, Rhode Island, with no intention of attending a wedding. In fact, she’s the only guest at the hotel who doesn’t know the bride and groom at all. For years, Phoebe dreamed of shucking oysters and taking sunset sails with her husband at the Cornwall Inn, only now she’s here without him. She’s reached rock bottom but is determined to have one last decadent splurge on herself. But after a chance encounter with Lila, the bride-to-be, Phoebe unexpectedly finds herself swept into the wedding party. As the two women begin to spend more time together, Phoebe becomes entangled in the chaos of the wedding and the lives of the people surrounding it, while Lila’s seemingly perfect wedding unravels. What follows is an unexpected friendship that forces both women to confront where their lives have taken them. 

At the beginning of the book, Phoebe is quite broken after her ex-husband cheats on her and ends the marriage. It’s immediately obvious that this is a story about reclaiming one’s life from despair and finding hope in unexpected ways. I enjoyed reading about Phoebe’s journey of growth as she meets all these strange ‘wedding people’ and how they touch her life. Instead of pulling her further into her grief, these diverse characters inadvertently force her back into the real world. Through these chaotic interactions, Phoebe proves to be an incredibly relatable, lovable, and complex character.

Because of this messy, realistic dynamic, there was a lot of heart and humour in this book. I often found myself laughing along with Phoebe, as well as being sad for her at times. The book is beautifully written, and Espach has eloquently conveyed Phoebe’s thoughts through the third-person narrative, making her transformation feel deeply personal. Additionally, the characters were portrayed as unpredictable rather than perfectly polished. For example, the fast-forming bond between Phoebe and Lila develops not through polite conversation, but through raw, unfiltered honesty about their life frustrations.

While I loved the beginning and the end of the novel, I felt that it dragged on somewhat  in the middle. There were times when I felt the momentum slowed down as the characters circled the same emotional issues over and over again. Yet, the story completely dragged me in, despite the uneven pacing. 

Overall, The Wedding People was a funny, heartfelt, and ultimately hopeful read that completely took me by surprise. Despite the slower middle, I became genuinely invested in Phoebe’s journey and the strange group of people she meets along the way.  It’s a story about grief, friendship, and finding reasons to keep going when life doesn’t turn out the way you expected. I’m so glad I finally picked this one up, and it’s definitely a book I’ll be thinking about for a while.

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