a diary of an american ritual

Often times, films portray weddings to be perfect: romantic, elegant, and flawless.  No wedding is perfect. Something will go wrong – and that is the best part. Funny stories come out of the crazy things that happen on your wedding day. Prepare yourself by watching our staff picks of these classic wedding movie scenes. There are so many, so we just picked a few.

Wedding Crashers

Wedding Crashers, an incredibly popular film that was released in 2005, brought an exaggerated idea to romantic comedies and wedding films.  Funny men, Vince Vaughn (Old School) and Owen Wilson (The Royal Tenenbaums), team up to portray self-declared Casanovas, Jeremy Grey and John Beckwith, who attend several weddings under false names and personalities. Toward the end of wedding season, John is ready to take a break from the wedding crashing until Jeremy mentions the ceremony of all ceremonies: The Treasury Secretary, William Cleary’s (Christopher Walken), daughter is getting married.  Knowing that this event will be beyond phenomenal, John and Jeremy act as two brothers who are connected to the Cleary family.  At the ceremony, Jeremy gets close with a young red-head, Gloria, played by Isla Fisher, who is another daughter of Secretary Cleary’s.  John falls for another daughter, Claire Cleary, Rachel McAdams (The Notebook).  After building a quick relationship with Gloria, Jeremy and John are invited to stay at the Cleary family estate where John begins to build his relationship with Claire, who gets engaged to another man whom treats her terribly.  The Cleary family soon learns the boys’ true identities and kicks them out.  John loses Claire, while Jeremy and Gloria keep dating.  They both gain a lesson in love.

Why we love it: This movie takes all the stereotypes of weddings and mashes them together with great writing. We are a big fan of montages- and think that the Shout Montage in this movie rocks. Some of our staff has worked over 200 weddings alone- multiply that by 11 staff members- that’s a lot of weddings. We started to notice these montage worthy similarities years ago and was glad to see them worked into a film.

The Wedding Singer

Released, in 1998, this film takes us back to the mid-1980’s, when the new wave of dance pop ruled the country. Robbie, played by Adam Sandler, was the must have singer to have at your wedding. This was until his own fiance left him at the alter. Robbie’s wedding singing career took a dramatic turn after leashing out at clients and their guests, along with only listening to The Cure for a while. Things began to change after meeting waitress, Julia, played by Drew Barrymore. Julia is a genuine, sweet girl who is engaged to the wrong man, Glenn Gulia, played by Matthew Glave. After falling in love, Robbie chases her down before she becomes Julia Gulia.

Robbie happens to catch her on a plane that Glenn and Julia are taking to Vegas for a brief, immediate wedding ceremony. With Billy Idol’s help, Robbie wins the girl. Of course, Steve Buscemi makes his classic appearance in this work of Sandler’s.

Why we love it: Who doesn’t love getting serenaded by Adam Sandler! The band auditions crack us up- having seen the good bad and the ugly in real life- we can relate.

My Big, Fat, Greek Wedding

Toula Portokalos, played by Nia Vardalos (My Life in Ruins), a 30 year-old who works in her family’s Greek restaurant has never had any luck when it came to finding love.  Her overbearing father, Gus, is desperate for her to get married and start a life with another Greek man.  The role of Gus was taken on by Michael Constantine (In The Mood), a renowned American-Greek actor.  Toula cleans her life up and decides to not to depend on her family so much.  Just as she does, Toula meets high school teacher, Ian, played by John Corbett (Sex and The City 2).  The immense amount of people in Toula’s quirky family must accept her choice of husband not being Greek, while Toula must accept her heritage.

This scene illustrates the wedding between Toula and Ian.  Each character seems to share a brief, comedic moment with another, not to mention the ridiculous dresses Toula and the bridesmaids are wearing.

Why we love it: The families! All families have quirks regardless of where they come from. Weddings bring out all the personalities and eccentricities. Our wedding films focus on families and relationships, so we pick up on these subtle things in our work . And even though this was shot in Toronto and was supposed to be Chicago- we forgive you filmmakers… it is really funny. Next time though, you should shoot your film here- it is a great place

The Princess Bride

This classic film, released in 1987, is a timeless, comedic story engraved in our hearts for years.  The film begins with a grandfather reading his favorite book to his grandson.  The story is a typical medieval love story filled with incredibly quirky characters and mishaps.  The lovely Buttercup, Robin Wright, is kidnapped the night of her wedding to Prince Humperdink, Chris Sarandon, despite her longing for her first love, Westley, played by Cary Elwes.  Westley, of course, returns to save the day but does not expect all the action that comes upon him.

Why we love it: Probably one of the best marriage scenes in the movies comes from The Princess Bride. Despite the speech impediment the priest has, none of the wedding company seems to crack a smile, but the word “mawwage” definitely made audience belt out laughing.

We have seen our share of interesting officiants- and this one takes the cake.

Father of the Bride

In this remake of the Spencer Tracy classic, George and Nina Banks are the parents of young soon-to-be-wed Annie. George is a nervous father unready to face the fact that his little girl is now a woman. The preparations for the extravagant wedding provide additional comic moments. Written by Reid Gagle

George Banks is an ordinary, middle-class man whose 21 year-old daughter Annie has decided to marry a man from an upper-class family, but George can’t think of what life would be like without his daughter. He becomes slightly insane, but his wife tries to make him happy for Annie, but when the wedding takes place at their home and a foreign wedding planner takes over the ceremony, George must try to handle the fact that people grow up. Written by MikeAce9@aol.com

Why we love it: Because Hafeez our DJ says so. Just kidding. (He really likes this movie) We feel for you dads. George Banks gets caught up in all the hoopla that is wedding planning, the cost of everything and learning to letting go of kids. We are so glad someone wrote a film to recognized your role. Plus Steve Martin. ‘nuf said.

by: annie