Here comes the bride…and again…and again…and again.

Prolific writers are often able to achieve volume by finding a formula that works for them. It provides a framework within which they can achieve a success that their fans will appreciate and return for more.

Jessie Jones, Nicholas Hope and Jamie Wooten have written 15 plays together and several more individually. Each of them draws on Southern comedy and most of them focus on Southern women and their friendships and relationships. They’re bigger than life, yet charmingly familiar.

The Dio successfully put on “The Dixie Swim Club” last summer by these three same playwrights and returned to the well to find a similar crowd-pleaser for this summer– “Always a Bridesmaid,” a play about four friends who, the night of their senior prom, vowed they would always be in each other’s weddings. Now they’re in their 40s and one of them is having her third wedding.

Like last year’s show, this play skips forward in time, covering a total of seven years and four marriages. Each scene opens with a young woman in a traditional bridal gown giving her post-marriage speech and enjoying some champagne as she speaks. Ann Dilworth gives delightful monologues as Kari Ames-Bissette and reveals some of the things that can go wrong in weddings—such as the perils of releasing doves on the first day of hunting season.

Each of the four weddings come with their own unique hijinks and their own set of mishaps. All of them are memorable and make for a comic evening for the audience. But this is not a play that relies on plot so much as it does on character and the ensemble of actors plays to this strength.

Nancy Penvose plays Libby Ruth Ames, the eternal optimist and romantic. She creates a likeable character who is the glue that holds these women together. As an actress, she is as generous as her character, giving straight lines to those around her and making them seem even bigger.

Sonja Marquis has the most costume changes, sometimes right on stage. Her character is the self-absorbed Monette, who wants people to “accept me for who I pretend to be.” Monette is obsessed with being younger and wearing 5-inch spike heels.

The somewhat tomboyish one of the lot is Wendy Hedstrom’s Charlie. Fiercely independent, she spurns dresses whenever possible and is cynical about the whole romance ideal. Hedstrom mines Charlie to provide several levels to the character without simply falling back on stereotype.

The script tells us that Amy Morrisey’s Deedra is cold-blooded, but we have to rely on what others say about her. The script doesn’t give her much opportunity to show that except in the second scene where we discover her bitterness has cause and isn’t just a personality issue. Morrisey does her best with what she’s been given and shines in the third scene where she’s faced with a tough, albeit amusing, choice.

Rounding out the cast is Fran Potasnik as Sedalia, the owner of the wedding venue who runs it with an iron hand and sometimes an axe, making sure all of her brides behave and the weddings go off with as few hitches as possible.

There are times early on when the Southern accents get thick, quick and hard to follow, but that doesn’t last long.

Director Steve DeBruyne paces the show well and keeps the stakes high in each scene. He stresses the relationships between the women and lets those take the forefront. Each woman gets her chance to shine in her own way.

The set is a single unit, designed by Matthew Tomich, who also did lighting and sound design. Norma Polk had the fun job of finding wedding and bridesmaid dresses for each scene. They ranged from the elegant to the comically atrocious.

Chef Jarod DeBruyne served up his usual delicious meal, this time a Greek salad with salad bar options, mixed vegetables, boneless fried chicken and a vegetable lasagna with squash and eggplant.

The story may be familiar to those who have seen other plays by Jones, Hope and Wooten, but it has an entertaining familiarity which invites audiences to remember their own friendships and perhaps even their own wedding days. It may be a formula, but it is a formula that works and serves its purpose.

Run time 7:48 to 10:15 with a 20-minute intermission for dessert.