When Iris Hagarty gets frustrated from yet another bride making unreasonable demands on her bridesmaids, she reaches out for support. She sets up a Facebook group called The Bridesmaids Union to air her grievances and find support from other women who have a closet filled with dresses that can never be worn again and credit card bills from trips and gifts and shoes. It’s a private group, so she has control over who sees what, making sure that the overall feel of the group is uplifting.
It helps her to have the group as an outlet, since so much of her life is given over to being a single mom to a young son, working as a compliance administrator in a local hospital, and disappointing her overbearing religious parents. She has two sisters. Rose is the oldest, and she lives in Florida and rarely comes back to New Jersey. And her younger sister Jasmine has been distant ever since Iris had canceled her wedding, right before she found out she was pregnant.
But now everything is different. Iris is a perennial bridesmaid, and Jasmine is getting married. Jasmine invites Iris over, with two of her best friends, so that Jasmine can officially invite them to be her bridesmaids. It’s there that Iris learns that her baby sister is an Instagram influencer and her pet shoe business is really taking off, since a key celebrity has taken notice of her adorable pet heels and placed an order. Her husband-to-be is a tech genius who sold his company in his 20s for millions and is starting another company.
Iris “wins” the opportunity to be Jasmine’s maid of honor, but as the weeks of wedding planning go on, the wedding grows from a small private party into a big, expensive, showy extravaganza with a goat as a ring bearer. And as the wedding gets bigger and wilder, Jasmine and her demands get crazier. Iris goes online to keep her Bridesmaid Union friends appraised of it all, but when another admin takes the group public, everything blows up in Iris’s face.
When Iris is faced with her own bad behavior online, will she finally find her voice in the real world, or will she choose to keep her mouth shut and keep airing her grievances online?
The Bridesmaid Union is a funny, understanding, warm story of finding your voice and taking responsibility for what you’re feeling. Author Jonathan Vatner gets in the head of bridesmaids and into the heart of sisters with intelligence, compassion, and plenty of drama.
I got completely swept up in The Bridesmaids Union and enjoyed all the ups and downs. But what surprised me most was how much Vatner packed into this one novel. This would be an ideal book for book clubs because it has the potential to spark conversations about family, religion, politics, weddings, Facebook, privacy, parenting, dating, ugly dresses, influencers, feminism, art, and sisterhood. This novel has so much going on that you can use it as a jumping off point for a multitude of discussions, or just for a wine-enhanced comparison of bridezillas you’ve known, if that’s what your book club is into.
Egalleys for The Bridesmaids Union were provided by St. Martin’s Press through NetGalley, with many thanks.
