Wedding Season by Katie Fforde

Wedding Season is a sweet, funny, human book.

Wedding Season is the story of a disillusioned wedding planner, Sarah; a multi-faceted make-up artist who must get away from her controlling boyfriend, Bron; a dress-maker who can make ethereal dresses but doesn't believe in her own beauty, Elsie; and two very frantic brides - Sarah's infuriating little sister, and Carrie Condy, starlet, who have happen to choose the same date, less than a few months away, and expect their perfect, fairytale weddings in this short period of time. And Sarah, of course, is given the delicate task of making all this work - from satisfying her own sister's huge demands on an almost non-existent budget to Carrie's own unrealistic demands and erratic moods - and give them both the wedding of this dreams. Add in a few hunky guys and a lot of romance, and you've got Wedding Season. While the book does fail a bit in the originality of plot or conflicts department, the story does manage to hold you interest due to the following factors.

The first is that the writing quality is good. Fforde writes a tight narrative with little or no crazy coincidences (the fact that both weddings are on the same day is clearly a plot convenience, but I guess we can overlook it for purposes of drama) and though the guys in the novel come across as pretty much jobless and helping the ladies for random stuff (and people do end up having a lot of surprising abilities) the story manage to flow along without becoming too unbelievable. The author writes at a fast pace that manages to tide over any plot issues and leaves the reader constantly turning the pages. She manages to avoid the crazy description and purple prose that often destroys such chick-flicks, and adds in just enough of each character to keep the reader entertained for a longer-than-average book as compared to other books in the same genre.

The second is that the characters, especially the three main ones, are very lovable. One can easily sympathise with Sarah, Elsie and Bron, and one or the other of their problems is sure to touch women everywhere. The supporting cast, especially the male characters, is slightly under-developed, as I pointed out above, but this fits in with the 'chick-flick' atmosphere the author is clearly going for. Highly secondary characters, like Sasha, the stylist, come of as highly-cliched and flat, mostly because the author spends little or no time with them and is moreover seeing them through the eyes of characters who don't have any reason to like these particular characters. Some, random characters, like the mother of Bron's boyfriend, are surprisingly touching and show a certain amount of depth that really adds to the beauty of the book as a whole.

Final thoughts: This book is a certified chick-flick, but within that it has an interesting (if somewhat cliched) plot, lovable characters, and tight-writing. Definitely readable.