In “Pride and Prejudice,” Jane Austen, one of the greatest novelists to ever write about human relationships, dedicates hundreds of pages to guiding her heroines toward matrimony, and only 21 words to describing their actual wedding day: “Happy for all her maternal feelings was the day on which Mrs. Bennet got rid of her two most deserving daughters.”
But while Austen may have found weddings less interesting than what comes before (and after) them, many other writers have plumbed those happy occasions for on-page drama. With their picturesque settings, familiar characters and free-flowing alcohol, weddings have a way of bringing every emotion to the surface: love and joy, of course, but also jealousy, resentment, insecurity, grief, even rage. In fiction, authors capture how a wedding’s grand ideas (eternal devotion, incandescent love) can run up against the pitfalls of event planning (family feuds, breaches of etiquette, bad chicken).
As summer wedding season begins, these 11 books dig into the good, the bad and the chaotic of saying “I do.” Some will have you sighing, heart aflutter, mentally arranging flowers for your own happy day. Others provide the vicarious thrill of washing down cake with a glass of prosecco and watching it all burn.
