The book's divided into 4 parts--one for each of the weddings that Cate is a bridesmaid in. Sarah has a wild bachelorette party while pretending she didn't to her fiance. Val is Cate's cousin. Leslie is the bridezilla who appears to have planned her wedding to the tiniest detail but not thought much beyond that, and Beth has a costume wedding since she gets married on Halloween. Along the way Cate collects three engraved silver mirrors as bridesmaids gifts.

At the beginning of the book, Cate has been dating Paul for about a year. She's puzzled as to why all her friends seem to be getting married while the two of them are still in relationship limbo (as far as Cate is concerned anyway). At Sarah's wedding, Care reconnects with her childhood friend Ethan who hires her to take photos of menu items for his catering business. Their friendship renews--and after Cate and Paul break up, it's clear Ethan wants more, but Cate is worried their easy friendship will suffer if she takes the chance.

I can sympathize with Cate's fears. It is scary to take the step from friendship to a romantic relationship, and in most cases, it does seem hard for the two people to go back to just friendship if it doesn't work out. I think because in most cases one of the two still wants more than friendship. However, the friendship base does seem to be important in a long term relationship, so . . . ( )

Mundane chick lit as one can tell by the title. It could have been worse, so I gave this 3 stars, because I have read much worse chick lit books than this...

There is however a story involved, Cate is dating a LOSER man that comes & goes & flakes off very often.....

She's not sure what to do about him (the loser) and is meanwhile working and spending time w/ a good friend she knew from high school...

And there are the weddings she's in and the family members & various nutcakes that she ends up dealing with..... ( )

A blurber on the back of this book enthused that she "loved the Jane Austen-ish heroine." Reader, if that tempts you to buying this book, all I can tell you is I've read Jane Austen (even the incomplete novels), I know from Jane Austenesque, and for the life of me I can't see how Lyles' heroine, Cate Padgett, resembles any of them. She certainly isn't sensible like Elinor, talented like Marianne, witty like Lizzie, clever like Emma or level-headed like Anne. Cate is...well, nice, but doesn't stand out to me as a character and struck me as too doormattish for too much of the book. Her best moment is in the very first chapters when she locks up the drunk ex of her about to be married friend. Nor do I see Jane Austen's gentle satire of social convention and pretensions here and to me, anyway, fart jokes, "penis crowns" and strippers with the sobriquet "cheesedick" don't conjure up her wit. Humor is a very subjective, I know, but I never felt the comic scenes and jokes ever came off in this book--and despite the sometimes crudity actually my general impression of the novel was its blandness. I found the plot predictable and the prose pedestrian.

However, all this is probably to treat this novel too harshly. If you love chicklit (which, admittedly, I'm finding I don't), and want and expect a light frothy romance and not literature, this might be a good bet. All and all it's a good-hearted tale with likable characters, and I admit I was charmed by and envious of Beth's Halloween wedding (I'd want one if I got married!) and am tempted to create Jill's breakup compilation. ("Survivor," "Respect," "Rearranging," "No Scrubs," etc.). So yes, I'll admit the story had its moments. ( )