You're Enjoying the Summer Wedding Season

It's wedding week

Hi friends,

Hope you’re all surviving the heat wave. As I write this, my dog is lying on the floor, under the coffee table to stay cool. I’m tempted to join her.

Two of my cousins are getting married in the coming weeks (congrats to them and their fiancées!), so I’ve decided to spotlight three wedding-related books this week. They’re all a little different, but — like real weddings — they all made me cry.

Have a favorite wedding book? Let me know in the comments.

You Talk to Strangers at the Reception

The Wedding People by Alison Espach

A friend once told me that I’m a great wedding guest because I can talk to a wall. This is true — put me at a table with your elderly aunt, five-year-old cousin or work friends, and I’ll find some way to keep the conversation going. If this resonates with you, or you just want a big-hearted novel, grab Alison Espach’s The Wedding People. (Content warning for suicide.)

Phoebe Stone arrives at the Cornwall Inn, in ritzy Newport, Rhode Island, wearing a silk emerald-green dress and gold heels, and is mistaken for a guest of the wedding the hotel is hosting. While every other person at the inn is there for the wedding, Phoebe is there for a much darker reason. She’s planning one last extravagant evening before committing suicide.

When Phoebe inexplicably tells the bride, Lila, her plan, the engaged woman panics because a death will ruin her perfectly planned wedding. Phoebe, understandably, finds Lila self-absorbed, but ultimately convincing. She decides against suicide, and the two women surprise even each other as they become confidantes, and Phoebe takes on Maid of Honor duties.

The Wedding People was one of the IT books of 2024, but every time I tried picking it up until earlier this month, I couldn’t get into it. The premise, an apparently heart-warming and funny book about suicide, felt like too much. But now that I’ve finally read it, I get the hype. It’s a tender and funny novel about second chances and finding the people you need at the right moment — even if they take the shape of an heiress bride. That said, I’m glad I waited until I was in a headspace where I could enjoy it.

Bingo Boxes this Book Checks: Set over the summer

You Know Not to Mess with the Bridesmaids

Women of Good Fortune

When Harv, Shanghai’s most eligible bachelor, proposes to Lulu, she knows she should be happy. After growing up in poverty in rural China, Harv’s wealth will protect her and her family. The problem? She doesn’t really want to marry Harv.

Lulu confesses her feelings to her friends, Jane and Rina, during their weekly hot pot date. Jane jokes they should steal the red envelopes filled with cash for the newlyweds at the wedding. After all, Jane says, she needs funds to divorce her husband and Rina is trying to scrape together money to pay for an egg freezing procedure. The women laugh it off — until they don’t.

They begin to organize an intricate heist, recruiting Shanghai’s best counterfeit maker and a teenage getaway driver to round out their crew while studying blueprints and developing elaborate timelines. But, as the wedding day grows closer and their plan threatens their relationships with each other and others, the three friends debate if the money is worth the cost.

I picked up Women of Good Fortune thinking it would be a classic heist novel. And while the heist is at the center of the plot, it’s really a thoughtful, moving study of female friendship. Read it and give it to your best friend.

Bingo Boxes this Book Checks: Debut

You’d Wear an Ugly Bridesmaid Dress for Your Best Friend

The Ex Vows by Jessice Joyce

Georgia Woodward has a made a list — and checked it twice — of the tasks she needs to complete to ensure her best friend Adam’s wedding is perfect. Unfortunately, the wedding is, in Adam’s words, cursed. When the venue burns down, he asks Georgia and their mutual best friend Eli, to plan a new wedding at his family’s winery in a week. As if that wasn’t a big enough ask, Georgia and Eli went through a disastrous breakup five years earlier.

Georgia refuses to let her still-present feelings interfere with the wedding or her very tight-knit friend group. So, she’ll use her list to keep things between her and Eli professional and wedding-oriented. But, the Eli she picks up at the airport isn’t the Eli she knew five years ago. He’s more like the teenager she first fell in love with. As they taste cakes and interview DJs, Georgia considers if a reunion would be reliving a devastating relationship or the chance to build something new.

On paper, The Ex Vows should not have worked for me. It’s written in first-person present and features a dual timeline, both things I don’t typically love in romance. And yet, I adored this book. Jessica Joyce has a real gift depicting a character’s emotions, making you feel what they feel. I read this in one sitting — and started crying on page 30 and didn’t finish until an hour after closing the book. (I did read it on a plane which might explain some of the excessive crying, but also, it’s very good.)

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