In THE WEDDING BEAT, Gavin, a single guy, writes the wedding
column so he often finds himself at Saturday night wedding
receptions, in part because he might as well work since he's
got nothing going on in his own romance department. At a New
Year's Day party, he encounters Melinda, the woman of his
dreams, only to have her disappear before he can untie his
tongue. He continues to recount his experiences with
neurotic and sometimes anxious brides and grooms as he looks
for Melinda. He finds her only to be tasked with writing a
column for her upcoming wedding.
Sipher's prose is smart and funny with a definite New York
sensibility. His observations come across as honest and
insightful. Gavin Greene is all male angst, eager to be in a
relationship but only with the right woman, a woman he
thinks he's found and subsequently lost. He goes to great
lengths to find her again, which should offer hope to women
who might feel that guys don't invest as much effort in
relationships as women do.
For those who like those "behind the scenes' kind of
tidbits, there are a couple of life imitating art and art
imitating life associations with this book. First, in THE
WEDDING BEAT, hopeless romantic Gavin Greene pens the
wedding column for The Paper, a thinly disguised reference
to The New York Times, where author Devan Sipher pens the
Vows column in real-life. Second, the story reminded me a
bit of 27 Dresses, a movie featuring a reporter who gets
involved with a woman against the backdrop of her sister's
wedding. Turns out Sipher's website suggests that he may
have been the inspiration for the reporter character in 27
Dresses, another interesting tidbit.
THE WEDDING BEAT is an upbeat, fast-paced and humorous look
at the rollercoaster of love from inside a man's head. It's
definitely worth the read.
Gavin Greene is a hopeless romantic. He's also a
professional one: He writes the wedding column for a
Pulitzer Prize-winning newspaper, covering spectacular
parties from coast to coast. But there's a thin line between
being a hotshot reporter on assignment...and being a single
guy alone on a Saturday night at someone else's
wedding.
Everything changes on New Year's when Gavin
meets Melinda, a travel writer with an adventurous spirit.
A moonlit stroll across a Manhattan rooftop seems to
seal the deal. But then she slips away.
Gavin
crisscrosses New York City to find her again, navigating
stressed-out brides, gossip blogs, a budget-cutting boss and
his daft but well-meaning parents. Along the way, he
learns that there's something worse than losing the woman
of his dreams -- having to write an article about her wedding.
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