A seaside hotel, a million-dollar wedding, twisted relationships and a steady murmur of grief and anxiety are the cornerstones of Alison Espach’s book The Wedding People. The novel is about finding meaning when life feels like it has fallen apart. What would you do if the life you lived was shaken to its core and all that you’re left with are the broken pieces? Phoebe, trying to grapple with her new, lonely reality is done with life, with trying, with pretending – and chooses to escape. But when she arrives at the Cornwall Inn, a grand hotel in Newport, her intentions are quickly foiled by the throng of people in the lobby, who have gathered to celebrate the wedding of Lila and Gary.
Sticking out like a sore thumb, Phoebe locks herself in her room, hoping sleep will take her pain away. After an awkward introduction with the bride, she ends up striking an unusual friendship with Lila and subsequently, gets pulled into the wedding festivities. Amongst a vibrant, messy cast of friends and family, through awkward introductions and late-night conversations, Phoebe slowly begins to return to herself.
Espach, with her witty dialogues, skewers social conventions without mocking them. The hotel becomes a kind of confessional, where truths slowly comes out. Lila, who feels increasingly isolated and anxious about having the perfect wedding, finds Phoebe, a complete stranger, to be the perfect person she can be honest to. The groom, the best man, the bridesmaids, everyone at the wedding is performing and pretending. But beneath all the laughs and kisses, tensions quietly build towards an explosive climax.
The atmospheric setting of the seaside hotel offers readers an easy escape. While taking readers through a week of wedding activities and ceremonies, Espach also throws light on the grief experienced by all the characters. The heart-to-heart conversations between Phoebe and the wedding guests are portrayed perfectly.
Espach brilliantly balances the tone of the novel. It’s laugh-out-loud funny in places, emotionally generous in others. It sparkles with awkward dialogue but is also abundant in tender moments of confession. But if there’s one flaw with The Wedding People, it’s that it occasionally tends towards inaction. The idyllic setting of the hotel, the countless spa waters, at times makes the reader feel like the story is suspended in a vacuum. “It is so much easier to sit in things and wait for something to save us”, Espach writes. Perhaps that is the point. Phoebe’s grief has trapped her; the wedding people are filled with tangled emotions. They’re all looking for permission, to feel, to say, to leave, and to stay.
The Wedding People reminds us that healing does not always happen in therapy, or yoga retreats – but sometimes, it can happen in the chaos of other people’s joy.