My Favorite Wedding Movies

In honor of my friend Cassy who got married this week (Congratulations!) I’ve compiled my list of favorite wedding movies. Keeping it down to just five was pretty hard. Away we go…

Rachel Getting Married
If you haven’t seen it: Kym (Anne Hathaway) is a recovering drug addict who has been away in rehab for nine months and is released home for the weekend for her sister Rachel’s wedding.
Why you need to rent it: This is film making at it’s rawest. I mean it has a big name main character and an established director (Jonathan Demme, The Silence of the Lambs), but what’s raw about the film is that like In America you feel like you’re looking through the window of this family’s house. By the end of the film I really wanted to be a guest at Rachel’s wedding, throughout all the craziness of wedding planning and family wounds, the love that these characters feel for one another just jumps off the screen and you feel it too, there’s not really a way for me to articulate it better than that. But as I’ve recommended this film to dozens of video store customers they’ve come back agreeing with me.

In Her Shoes
If you haven’t seen it: Rose (Toni Collette, “The United States of Tara) and Maggie (Cameron Diaz) are the two most different sisters you could ever find. The only thing that they agree on is their shoe size. One is thin and one is heavy, one is a serious lawyer and the other is illiterate, one is promiscuous…you get the idea. After a fight that’s been percolating for years Maggie leaves Rose and finds their long lost grandmother (Shirley MacClaine). At the same time, Rose finally being free from taking care of her younger sister falls in love and has one of the cutest backyard weddings you could ever want to see.
Why you need to rent it: Any woman with a sister or an extremely close friend understands the saying “I love you, but I don’t like you right now”. Well, that’s Rose and Maggie’s relationship pretty much throughout the whole movie. It’s a great chick flick about growing up and coming into your own (even when you’re already an adult).

Sweet Home Alabama
If you haven’t seen it: Well it came out in 2002 and was a blockbuster, so odds are you have seen it, but just in case…Melanie is a NYC based fashion designer engaged to the son of a politician (Patrick Dempsey, “Grey’s Anatomy”), her life is near perfect until she realizes that she’s still married to her high school sweetheart (Josh Lucas, Glory Road). What’s an engaged but married girl to do, go home to Alabama and get a divorce. Complications ensue when realizes that maybe she ran away from the wrong things.
Why I Love this Movie: Not to spill too many secrets in the very off chance that you’ve yet to watch it, but there are TWO great wedding scenes in this movie, on top of it being an adorable rom-com. Candice Bergen (Miss Congeniality ) is yet again great as the lady trying to ruin everyone’s fun. And if you like movies with crazy small town characters, you won’t be disappointed.

My Best Friend’s Wedding
If you haven’t seen it: If you’ve turned on TBS once in the last ten years then you’ve probably seen at least a few minutes of my favorite Julia Roberts movie (sorry Jon). Just to set it up, Jules (Julia Roberts) realizes that she is in love with her male best friend (Dermot Mulroney, The Family Stone) just as he gets engaged to the sticky sweet, twenty one year old, heiress Kimberly (Cameron Diaz). Jules heads the wedding with the intention of winning the groom and gets caught up in some drama of her own when her gay best friend (Rupert Everett, The Next Best Thing), shows up posing as her fiancé.
Why I Love this Movie: In my pinion comedy is Diaz’s strong suit (There’s Something About Mary anyone?) and I wish she did more of this. You go into the movie expecting that her character is going to be just awful, but she turns out to be sincerely wonderful and the whole movie I’m wondering if I really want Roberts to break up the marriage. It’s refreshing, because in most rom-com’s you’re rooting for only one character who is so clearly right for the protagonist, but in this movie you could really see him with both of the girls, conflict people, it works. Also, Everett is always really funny, but as George, Jules’ BFF he’s so charming, so much that I wish that he wasn’t gay and that they could end up together!

Father of the Bride
If you haven’t seen it: George (Steve Martin) has an ideal life, great career, great family, GREAT house. He and his wife (Diane Keaton) have a pre-teen son Matt (Kieran Culkin, Igby Goes Down) and an aspiring architect daughter Annie (Kimberly Williams Paisley, “According to Jim”). But when Annie brings home her fiancé from Italy instead of just a souvenir, all things in George’s life get turned upside down. Especially, as Annie and her mother begin planning a big fabulous wedding, all to take place in George’s house. So not only is he losing his daughter, but his home, most of what’s in his wallet, and his sanity.
Why I Love This Movie: Well, I always love Keaton and Steve Martin, they’re just great together in this and the sequel. I also love that she is age appropriate for him, something that you don’t see in movies all the time, if they remade this today I wouldn’t be surprised if…Eva Longoria Parker, let’s say was cast as the wife instead of someone in Martin’s own age group. So, the family dynamic works great, you get the Banks family as a unit.
Steve Martin is so fantastic as a man on the edge, really just trying to hold together everything he’s got when he feels life he’s losing the most important thing in his life, his daughter.
Martin Short is also great as the European wedding coordinator who is just one half of the team trying to ruin George’s life. Short is also hysterical in the sequel as the baby shower planner/ home decorator/ aerobics coach.
So if you haven’t seen it (which seems implausible) rent it (and the sequel, Father of the Bride Part II) or look them up for when they’re next playing on TBS (they usually run back to back), it’s sweet and light an always funny.