Not all romantic comedies are created equal.
Sure, they all have roughly the same parts – a meet-cute, whether recent or long-established, instant attraction, snappy dialogue, fun moments, a falling out or misunderstanding, and a desperate rush to (usually) the airport to declare undying love – but not all of them use those constituent elements well, or at least in a way that feels somewhat and refreshing.
Five Bush Weddings by Clare Fletcher, however, is one of those rom-coms that gets it absolutely and wonderfully right, taking all the tropes you can imagine and making vibrantly engaging use of them, such that you end up desperately watching, waiting and wanting for wedding photographer Stevie and old uni pal and farm owner’s son Johnno, freshly back from a stint in London, to finally realise they are meant to be.
The good news is that Fletcher not only makes fun and inventive use of all the elements mentioned above, but it does it in such a fun and relaxingly sweet and cleverly relatable way that even though it is, like all rom-coms spread with a copious of fairytale pixie dust, it still has the grounded quality needed to make it feel like this too could happen to you in real life.
Because let’s face it – though we might dive into sublimely escapist books like this to pause reality for an enchanting while, somewhere deep down, if it hasn’t already done so, we wish it could happen to us and if the book is as beguiling a mix of wish list and the real stuff of human experience, we often feel like it might just so.
That’s the dream, anyway.
Oh boy, Stevie-jean. Time to sober up. Granted, you’re in a hell of dry spell, but this is still Johnno. The scruffy bogan who’s never taken himself or his future seriously, and who’s seen you at your absolute worst. Your ex-boyfriend’s best friend. And he’s just given up life in London to move in with his parents in the middle of nowhere. Nup, no way, can’t happen. No more thoughts about kissing Johnno.
‘You okay there, Stevie? You’ve gone a bit quiet.’
‘Fine, fine,’ she said. ‘It’s your shout, you tight-arse.’ (P. 61)
One that Stevie feels is slipping from her grasp as she crests the end of her 31st year and eyes her 32nd birthday all too aware she isn’t quite the accomplished adult she hoped she would be.
While her housemate and bestie Jen, whom she’s known for years along with a close knit group of friends from university days and from growing up in regional Queensland where much of the story is set and where the heart of Five Bush Weddings definitely lies, is getting super serious with Andrew and building a career worth something, Stevie, though much in demand as the documenter of big, joyous, often drunken country weddings, still feels like she’s yet to nail what it is she wants from life.
Add to that that she’s often late invoicing for the weddings she’s shot, and even later getting the albums to her clients, and Stevie has a pretty strong sense that she’s epically failing at life, always party to everyone’s else romantic milestones but never quite having one of her own.
There is, of course, Johnno, always there in the background of her life and when they meet at one of the five bush weddings of the tile and rekindle their always vibrant friendship, Stevie wonders somewhere in the back of her mind, and heart, if the promise of something more that’s always been there could be fulfilled?
It’s a love thought but she dismisses it just as quickly, consumed by a busy career snapping brides and grooms at their best, often surrounded by longtime friends and family members who all live in a close-knit and supportive bubble – though of course it takes much of Five Bush Weddings for Stevie to realise how lucky she is to have that caring village around her – and by a new love who seems too good to be true but answers Stevie’s prayer that she not reach her 33rd year of life alone.
You know that this new love and Johnno’s attempt to date the girl from the sprawling property next door won’t actually work, but that’s one of the secret joys and pleasure of a great rom-com, of which Five Bush Weddings is most definitely one, that even though you know the ending, and how many of the narrative parts will play out, you are still immersed in and utterly invested in when Stevie and Johnno will realise they are the love story they have both been seeking.
You can tell how well written Five Bush Weddings is because even thought it’s all a foregone conclusion, the getting there is not, and Fletcher does a superlatively fun, bright and emotionally meaningful job of making the journey to the known and hoped-for destination feel like all the unexpected fun in the world.
You love the characters, especially Stevie, who’s winningly fallible and human, and Johnno who is the nicest but robust person to ever walk the planet, and Stevie’s mum Paula and rural, social media star, gossip Mabel and Jen and honestly, everyone (bar the cad!), you’ll glory in the lavishly described bush weddings of the title and you will be entranced by the love of rural Australia, specifically Queensland, that Fletcher brings to this delightful rom-com.
She [Stevie] crept over to Johnno’s side and look round the room. A chain-smoking social worker, a nosy septuagenarian, a couple of farmers, my ex-boyfriend, my mum … Holy shit. This is my village. My people. (P. 384)
Five Bush Weddings is a joy because Fletcher, while she has an eye very much on the romantic prize, knows that here the destination is not the entire story.
We often think so because happy-ever-afters are such a seductive thing, like dessert at the end of long meal, and who among us doesn’t want to skip dinner for dessert (well, those with a sweet tooth, anyway), but when you stop and think about it, it’s all the moments leading up to the big declaration of love unending and eternal that we’re really there for.
We want the characters to dance around each other, we want them to get close, pull away, get close again, rinse and repeat, and we want to see the full and gloriously lovely, and not so lovely fabric of their lives because all of the lead-up stuff makes the payoff so much richer and more enjoyable.
Fletcher gives us all that and so much more in the gently funny and emotionally resonant Five Bush Weddings which is cut above, and by a considerably appealing degree, your average rom-com, and as Stevie and Johnno finally make it to that point they’ve been evading for one reason for over a decade, you want to shout for joy because a lot of work has been put into making it all matter and it does in a way that makes the reading of this novel one of those rare joys that last beyond the final page.