In The Paris Wedding, Rachael and her high school sweetheart break up when he heads to Sydney to start his career and she stays behind in their farm town to take care of her ill mother. A decade goes by, she’s now 28, and her mother has died. Rachael finds herself invited to her first love’s destination wedding in Paris. Should she go? A trip to Europe might be just what she needs. She’s dealing with grief of all sorts. But it’s an all expense paid trip and Rachael decides to go, if only to convince herself she’s totally over Matthew and that she’s not an old maid at 28.
Once she arrives in Paris, it all becomes clear. She is so NOT over him. Rachael starts a flirtation with the wedding photographer (he’s Italian, living in NYC when he’s not shooting in war zones), and you’re thinking, alright, girl, you go! It’s Paris! But Rachael can’t get out of her own way.
As you’d expect there are major wedding hijinks, in part because so many people from her hometown are at this wedding. But this isn’t a rom-com, so Rachael is mourning what could have been and trying to figure out what the next decade looks like. I vacillated between sympathy and facepalms. Just at the moments you were rooting for her to just go have some fun, she’d backslide.
Compelling premise, colorful characters, but ultimately, the Paris Wedding was a bit short on fun for me.
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