Everyone looks the same in wedding movies.
Hello, and welcome to the online wedding community… A place filled with endless wedding inspiration from brides and grooms from all walks of life… from traditional to offbeat, the online wedding community is your one-stop-shop for finding every kind of wedding inspiration imaginable. It’s a place where every kind of bride and every kind of groom can call home… you can be a traditional ballgown bride, a think-outside-the-box bride, a feminist, a same-sex couple, a daring DIY’er, a groom who does the bulk of the planning, a couple who is footing the bill for their own wedding…anything. The online wedding world is a place where the soon-to-be-wed join forces to create weddings that are personalized, and to encourage others to plan weddings with a follow-your-own rules mentality.
For me, the online wedding community is the best gift this crazy bride could have ever received. Because before I had discovered the glorious world of wedding blogs, the only inspiration I had to go off of were mainstream wedding movies. Wedding movies that in turn made me initially hate planning a wedding. So if I was going to plan a wedding on my terms, I needed to find wedding inspiration elsewhere… because in the movies… every bride, groom, FMIL, MOB, FOB, FMIL, bridesmaid, groomsman, centerpiece, flower arrangement, ceremony set-up ALL LOOK THE SAME. Case in point:
But what shocks me the most about how every wedding in wedding movieland looks the same, is the fact that the actual wedding part of the wedding movie is a total afterthought. The characters never question the decisions they make about the wedding when planning it. They are never shown mulling over whether or not to serve a cake, because no-matter-what, a mainstream wedding movie without a wedding cake just wouldn’t fly. And mostly never do they ever mention the word “budget.” And never is there a scene in which the female lead character, the bride, questions having her father walk her down the aisle, or whether she’s going to have a bouquet toss, or wear a garter, or questions taking her groom’s last name. Those things are always implied. Most females portrayed in wedding movies never even come close to questioning the anti-feminism displayed in traditional weddings. These characters may be interesting, strong career women in their everyday lives, but when one of these interesting female lead characters gets engaged and starts to plan her wedding, she is almost always portrayed as a “follow-the-rules without questioning anything bride-bot,” or a “my-way-or-the-highway bridezilla.”
Clearly not every bride is like that, so why must we keep portraying them as such in mainstream wedding movies? Not only is this propelling society to think that every wedding should look like the ones in mainstream wedding movies, but they are further encouraging bride/groom stereotypes that just need to stop. For example, every groom in a wedding movie is portrayed as not giving a sh*t about the wedding. Which is completely not true. I know a lot of grooms who want in on the details of planning, yet these movies never show that side. Here’s what I say: show me a mainstream wedding movie in which the father of the bride *doesn’t* go all “Daddy’s Little Girl, need to ask me permission to marry my daughter.” Or an FOB who *isn’t* expected to foot the entire bill for the wedding. Show me a mainstream wedding movie that plays by its own rules. Because maybe then can this expectation to throw a traditional white wedding with all the fixin’s be laid to rest.
After much thought, I found an example of a mainstream wedding movie that got it right (for the purpose of this post, anyway). One that should have been pretty obvious to me because I have seen it like 10 times (no joke)… Remember in Sex and the City the Movie… when Carrie bought the white suit to wear as her gown… but then got caught up in the “I’m-a-bride” of it all and abandoned the simple white suit she knew in her heart was right and decided to scrap the plans for a small wedding and wear the traditional show-stopping ballgown that was magnificent, but wasn’t what she (and Big) had originally wanted…?
The dress she wanted to wear all along...
The dress everyone else encouraged her to wear...
The lesson I learned from this mainstream wedding movie is that every couple can easily get caught up in the tradition of what a wedding is generally supposed to look like and be. But in the end, if that wedding doesn’t match your aesthetic as a couple (like the way the big wedding ended up being for Carrie and Big), then it’s more than ok to have the wedding you and your partner want, as opposed to the wedding everyone else is directly or indirectly telling you to have. Sure it would have been fun to see Carrie marry Big in the grand setting with all the magical wedding parts included, but I much preferred the simple courthouse affair they decided on in the end. This ending showed that the writers of Sex and the City know their characters… and even though they wrote their characters into a mainstream wedding movie… the marriage of Carrie and Big was anything *but* mainstream in the end. And that makes me smile.
So, let’s tell mainstream Hollywood to make some more wedding movies like this one. Please?
For real, yo. I'm betting there's an entire generation of us brides who were ruined by "Father of the Bride." I grew up assuming there would be a "Frahnk" helping me create my gorgeous day. Nope! – Just me, the internet, my guy, and our trusty calculator! (and I wouldn't have it any other way of course)
Kerry, you are so right!! I grew up daydreaming of a huge elaborate wedding. But now that I'm all grown up reality changed everything. Instead of impressing people with how much money I can blow through I now am more focused on what is important to my fiance and I. Things like avoiding family drama by only inviting those closest to us, celebrating what a wedding is really about (our commitment) and avoiding going into debt
Yes I completely agree! Movie weddings make us fantasize about big elaborate productions. Thankfully FH and I are paying for our wedding and everything that comes with it. I don't think my parents really grasp how much things cost….they're still in la la land about what the "proper" way. Its been a battle or bringing their expectations back down to earth…more people should stop putting on a show, but rather on the true essense and magic of the wedding day….and that can mean different things to different people.
When my husband and I got married we had a wedding in a vineyard which was perfect. But then the guest list got out of control. 235 people later my check book started crying. Now looking back on it, 16 years ago this month, I wish I had held fast on the guest list. Over 1/2 those people I never even see anymore- co-workers and etc. If I had to do it again I would have had a wedding in Costa Rica overlooking the Copan valley.
I'd never thought of that, but you're totally right – we can add weddings to the long list of things that mainstream movies do wrong. I think it's more lazy than anything else, really, though I'm certainly not saying that the writers and producers and directors are off the hook – I just mean it's easier to portray weddings as your stereotypical bridezilla-driven, uninvolved-groom parade of clichés. It's outright laziness – an inability to (or even worse, a disinterest in) discover and invent quirky, offbeat wedding scenes and storylines.
I feel like I've seen some awesome weddings in indie movies, though.
Funnily enough, Runaway Bride with Julia Roberts and Richard Gere (aka my one true over-50 love) addresses this. She keeps going back for the hullabaloo everyone prescribes to weddings (and the relationships themselves) and loses herself in the process. In the end, she takes the simpler road and doesn't feel the need tor run anymore. Is it sad that I analysed Runaway Bride?
I am not actually engaged yet (wedding photographer – hence my blog & 'Bee obsession) but my partner and I are getting to that point the one thing we know is that we want a day that reflects us. Being Jewish in Sydney, Australia generally means having the same, overblown 300 guestlist circus as everyone else. Luckily we won't be engaged until the end of the year and won't be getting married for another year after that so we have time to make everyone see that us getting married is not about keeping up with the Rosens/Steins/Golds, but rather a celebration of the love we have for each other in a way that reflects our personalities.
This is such a good point! I had not thought about it, but you are completely right about this…and it probably perpetuates a lot of the stereotypes we hear about weddings. I have friends that aren't immersed in wedding things like I am…and when they ask me about my upcoming wedding, it always surprises them if I say that we are doing something that isn't "normal" that they would have maybe seen in movies. What? You aren't wearing a poofy wedding dress? What? You're not wearing a veil? What? It isn't in a hotel ballroom???
My favorite wedding — though not a movie, but still — is Jim and Pam on 'The Office.' I weeped because, let's face it, i'm a huge dork. But they run off and get married under Niagra Falls then go back and do the hullabaloo for everyone else, and get away with it because everyone else is busy being self-involved. It makes me smile.
As an experiment, I've been watching a wedding movie a week and Britt tells it true! The drama in wedding movies usually comes from someone attempting to thwart the wedding, not from the choices inherent to wedding planning. And there is usually an absurd source of money written into the plot so budget is not an issue (e.g. owning the White Sox, inventing coffee cup sleeves). I want to see more movies where the bride cries when she multiples cake price per slice by number of guests! I want to see more movies where the wedding actually happens. I want to see more movies where people of color are at least INVITED to the wedding, if not getting married at it. But I suspect I'll be watching the same old crap every week for the next year.
I want to thank brides , women, and couples like you every where who have encouraged other brides, women and couples to be themselves and be true to themselves. I got caught up in the movies and actually some blogs and wedding photography blogs where girls had so many ideas and amazing DIY projects. But then I realized that those weddings and projects werent who we were and wasn't something I wanted to put my time into! Our wedding turned out to be an amazing day that represented us and our family. We did a sand ceremony that included our children (his, now ours!) and it was the one of the best, emotional, happy, beautiful things about our wedding that I will remember forever. We also wrote our own vows to each other and that is another beautiful moment that will last forever. Thank you!
While mainstream movies may get weddings all wrong, indie ones can certainly get them right. Probably my favourite wedding movie is "Rachel Getting Married". Leaving out Anne Hathaway and the addiction part of it, the movie totally gets the budget/eclectic/DIY/athome wedding thing. It was perfect and gorgeous and full of love and friendship.
HAHA! You can come to our wedding. All of your 'wants' will apply; I can promise you that. I am an elementary school teacher and he is a coordinator for a NFP. Our budget can be described as "cheap as hell". I would love to have the 10k budgets that I read about on here. I could fulfill my wedding dreams with that budget. Obviously, my dreams are too small. We do plan on going through with the wedding…unless he shoves cake in my face then we are getting it annulled right after the reception. The best part, while I am a pale red head, he is black and so is his family. They are indeed invited! Even better, he is Caribbean so you know the reception will be a good time full of dancing and laughing! ; )