She just wasn’t marriage material. In midlife, that’s what Lisa Cheek had come to believe. Throughout decades of adulthood, she dated a lot—and turned down five marriage proposals. Then, at forty-nine, she said “yes” to Big Johnson. At last, she was ready to commit to a union founded on mutual respect and affection, no matter what challenges and chaos life threw at them. On her wedding day, Lisa was tingling with excitement as she looked up at the sweetest, kindest, most big-hearted man she’d ever known and said, “I do.” Moments later, her new husband pulled her aside to ask a question that shook her to the core: “Did you get the judge’s signature on the marriage certificate before he left?”
In THE BIG DAY: Saying I Do, Only To Discover I Didn’t (She Writes Press; September 22, 2026), Lisa Cheek takes us back to her wedding reception as she grapples with the reality that, despite waiting almost fifty years for a monumental event that people flew in from all over the world to witness, she wasn’t married after all. Was not getting the wedding license signed...a sign? Suddenly, she was questioning… Was marriage what she really wanted? To find the answer, Lisa reflects on her family history (thrice-divorced father and a load of stepfamily baggage, for starters) and her past relationships with men (none of which, other than an early intense one in college, lasted longer than six months). After The Musician (a classic heartbreaker), there was The Biologist (a charmless granola guy), The Actor (too much drama), The Magician (his best trick: disappearing), Rollerblading Dad (a big kid with a kid of his own, who broke Lisa’s heart), IT Guy (a stealth dog hater), The Gym Rat (a stickler for routine), and The Ghoster (who topped the magician by abruptly vanishing—three times). Yet at its heart, THE BIG DAY is about Lisa’s unexpected, tremendous love for Big Johnson, a really, really big guy—six foot two, and hovering around three hundred pounds—and a big romantic. Throughout their courtship, he surprised her with his appetite for adventure (including skinny-dipping), his close bonds with his parents (still full of effervescence for life in their nineties) and his two daughters, and his willingness to create a blended family (Big is a cat person, with two big male cats, Paws and Whiskers, while Lisa is a dog lover with one adorable furry best friend, Ron Howard). Yes, he was married twice before (both of his ex-wives are named Tammy), but Big is sincere in his devotion to spending the rest of his life with her.
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