Accompanied by his old friend Hank Bully, Lucky Luke is asked to escort a convoy of women across the West to the town of Purgatory, which is quickly becoming derelict and depopulated and where men badly need brides. On the road to Purgatory, the convoy faces various hazards including a bandit disguising himself as one of the women, an encounter with Natives that's solved by giving them the women's supply of wigs, a ravine with a destriyed bridge and a tornado. Luke also finds a big gold nugget on the road.
The convoy reaches Purgatory, and marriages happen almost immediately. Every bride is happy with her man... except one, the Irish Jenny O'Sullivan, whose Irish fiancé Teddy Degan has been put in jail for violently destroying the saloon after being called a Scot. Luke reluctantly accepts to serve as chaperone to Jenny as long as Teddy is in jail. Soon, Luke finds out he's not made to live with a woman, especially one like Jenny, while the mayor and everyone else in town hope he'll end up marrying Jenny and stay there as Sheriff.
The Dalton brothers arrive in Purgatory, and they soon find out about Jenny and Luke. Joe devices a plan, and in the hopes of killing Luke, the Daltons kidnap Jenny and hold her hostage. Luke tries to convince the townsfolk to help him get Jenny back, only to find out they're all cowards who won't do anything. Luke then takes it upon himself to go free Jenny, but at the condition that Teddy be released from jail once he's back.
At the Daltons' hideout, Joe grows increasingly annoyed and angry at Jenny, who's coerced his brothers into cleaning the hideout and doing various chores they never did before, in addition to lecturing them about alcohol and smoking being unhealthy. Luke besieges the hideout, and instead of attacking he just waits till Joe has enough of Jenny. Sure enough, the plan works and the Daltons surrender. Luke brings Jenny back to Purgatory, the Daltons go to jail, Teddy Dugan is released from prison, Jenny marries him, and Luke offers the newlywed couple the gold nugget he found earlier before heading off into the sunset.
The album was adapted in the second season of the Lucky Luke animated series.
Bride of Lucky Luke provides examples of:
- Crossing the Desert: The convoy has to cross a barren desert at one point. It's so hot that one of the women manages to cook an egg in a pan just by exposing it to the Sun.
- Feminine Women Can Cook: Subverted. Jenny's perhaps the most "feminine" woman in Purgatory, but she is actually a terrible cook.
- Foreign Queasine: Jenny's Irish stew tastes so horribly that Luke wonders if it's not the reason so many Irish people moved to America.
- Housewife: Terrible cooking aside, Jenny's a formidable homemaker, and she manages to coerce even the Daltons (bar Joe) into cleaning their own hideout and do chores to improve the quality of life there.
- Lethal Chef: Jenny is a terrible cook. She only ever cooks Irish stew — her own way —, and only Averell Dalton seems to like it besides herself.
- Only One Finds It Fun: Luke doesn't like Jenny's Irish stew, neither do Hank, the other women or Joe, Jack and William Dalton... but Averell genuinely does.
- The Pig-Pen: As Purgatory becomes more and more derelict, the men just go around in underwear and don't wash themselves for extended periods of time.
- Pink Is for Sissies: While Luke's Iconic Outfit is drying, Jenny has him wear a pink suit to go outside, and he's quite embarrassed by it. And he has to wear pink slippers at home too.
- Pity the Kidnapper: By the end, Joe has enough of he and his brothers being bossed around into doing chores by Jenny (who's not even afraid of them) and lectured by her about alcohol and tobacco being unhealthy, and the Daltons simply surrender to Luke so they won't have Jenny around anymore.
- Shout-Out: The kidnapping arc, to Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs:
- Jenny has the Daltons clean up their hideout and do menial tasks. This is lifted straight from the film.
- Jenny, Jack, William and Averell sing "Whistle While You Work" while working.
- Jenny outright nicknames Joe "Grumpy", and he acts quite like Grumpy too in reaction to the menial tasks and her dominance over his brothers.
- The Slacker: Both Luke and the Daltons are not used to maintain a home and (the Daltons especially) don't like being bossed around by Jenny into doing it. In Luke's defense, it's because he's The Drifter and thus he's not used to it. As for the Daltons, apparently not even Ma Dalton taught them such things, though they spend more time in prison than outside anyway.
