Set against the backdrop of an extravagant wedding weekend in Newport, Rhode Island, The Wedding People follows Phoebe Stone – a woman arriving with more emotional baggage than actual luggage. While every other guest is there to celebrate a wedding, Phoebe is there for herself. Mistaken for a wedding guest, she’s reluctantly pulled into the festivities, where an unlikely connection forms between Phoebe and the bride herself. Over the course of the weekend, both women confront the realities of the lives they’re living and the ones they thought they’d have.
Alison Espach excels at capturing the often unspoken moments that define our relationships, with others and ourselves. Phoebe is a brilliantly drawn character: sharp-witted, wounded, and quietly desperate for something she can’t quite name. Her observations about the absurdity of wedding culture and the rituals of polite society are both funny and honest. The setting of a lavish wedding provides the perfect contrast to Phoebe’s unravelling inner world, heightening both the comedy and the ache at the heart of the story.
What makes The Wedding People stand out is its refusal to follow neat emotional arcs. Espach embraces the messiness of grief, disappointment, and human connection without forcing resolution. The bond between Phoebe and the bride feels organic and refreshingly unpredictable, avoiding cliché in favour of something more truthful and strange. The novel’s quieter insights about loneliness, reinvention, and the odd comfort of brief, intense friendships make for a moving and sharply observational novel.
All in all, The Wedding People is a witty reminder that sometimes, the people we least expect are the ones who help us find our way back to ourselves.
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