In Wedding Night, we meet two sisters, Lottie and Fliss. Lottie is convinced that her boyfriend is preparing to propose to her. He has arranged a special dinner to "ask her something important." She is all prepared to give her older sister, Fliss, a play-by-play as it goes down, but then it doesn't go down quite as she expected. His "important question" is just about using airline miles. Enter Fliss, who has watched Lottie go off the deep end after every other break-up and anticipates her making another "unfortunate choice," like getting a tattoo or quitting her job to go to graduate school. Fliss is determined to head off another unfortunate choice.
Fliss has her own baggage, as she is still in the process of negotiating a tedious divorce and finalizing custody arrangements for her seven year old son, Noah. Thus, she is all the more determined to keep Lottie from making a mistake, when Lottie informs Fliss that an old boyfriend from her past has shown up and proposed out-of-the-blue. Lottie feels the arrangement was meant to be and is living in the romanticized past. Fliss makes it her goal to keep the couple from enjoying their wedding night at all costs (thus the risque nature to the book) in the hopes of pursuing an annulment. What ensues is a rip-roaring comedy of errors (reminiscent of Shakespearean comedies).
There was one bit I had to relate to my husband because it was so funny (an overheard and misinterpreted phone conversation). Despite touching on sexual activities repeatedly and being fairly predictable, I still have to say I enjoyed this novel. The characters were endearing, the dialogue genuinely funny, and the scenarios preposterous, but thoroughly entertaining. Although I was uncomfortable with the degree of moral relativism when it comes to sexual behavior in the book, I was at least mollified by a few brief arguments for the wisdom of pursuing love, then marriage, then sexual relations. And, as in Shakespearean comedy, "all's well that ends well."
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