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The Wedding People

by Alison Espach

A wedding weekend, seen from the unexpected guest’s side

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Awards & Recognition

  • Bestseller

    New York Times bestseller

    The source describes the book as a New York Times bestseller.

  • Book club selection

    Today Show Read With Jenna Book Club Pick

    Selected as a Read With Jenna Book Club pick.

  • Editorial selection

    The Guardian Best Book of the Year

    Named a Best Book of the Year.

AlbakiReads Editorial

A wedding weekend, seen from the unexpected guest’s side

At the Cornwall Inn in Newport, Phoebe Stone arrives alone, carrying a private plan for a long-awaited stay that has become something very different from what she imagined. Mistaken for part of the wedding party, she crosses paths with a bride whose careful preparations have not accounted for her presence. Their growing confidences bring together two women at different points of a disrupted weekend. The novel uses this unusual encounter to explore loss, starting over, and the detours that can redirect a life, balancing absurd humor with tenderness.

Good fit for readers who enjoy

  • Readers interested in stories about unexpected connections and new beginnings.
  • Readers who enjoy fiction centered on complicated wedding-weekend dynamics.
  • Readers drawn to novels combining dark humor with themes of loss and change.

Themes

Unexpected connectionStarting overLoss and changeChance encountersWedding-weekend dynamics

Based on publisher information and book metadata.

Book overview

The runaway New York Times bestselling Today Show Read With Jenna Book Club Pick, with more than 1.5 million copies sold, about an unexpected wedding guest and the surprising people who help her start anew.

Named a Best Book of the Year by The Guardian, Time, Chicago Tribune, Elle, Real Simple, and Glamour

It's a beautiful day in Newport, Rhode Island, when Phoebe Stone arrives at the grand Cornwall Inn wearing a green dress and gold heels, not a bag in sight, alone. She's immediately mistaken by everyone in the lobby for one of the wedding people, but she's actually the only guest at the Cornwall who isn't here for the big event. Phoebe is here because she's dreamed of coming for years--she hoped to shuck oysters and take sunset sails with her husband, only now she's here without him, at rock bottom, and determined to have one last decadent splurge on herself. Meanwhile, the bride has accounted for every detail and every possible disaster the weekend might yield except for, well, Phoebe and Phoebe's plan--which makes it that much more surprising when the two women can't stop confiding in each other.

In turns absurdly funny and devastatingly tender, Alison Espach's The Wedding People is ultimately an incredibly nuanced and resonant look at the winding paths we can take to places we never imagined--and the chance encounters it sometimes takes to reroute us.

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