Neighbours
For many, the quintessential on-screen wedding remains the 1987 marriage of Scott and Charlene in Australian daytime soap Neighbours. It was the apotheosis of a romantic teenage love story which brought together two feuding families – the Robinsons and the Ramsays – in much the same way as the Montagues and the Capulets, albeit with fewer deaths and more shoulder pads. The fictional wedding triggered a furore: in Australia, Time magazine featured it on the cover, while actors Kylie Minogue and Jason Donovan caused stampedes at local shopping malls Photograph: AFP/Getty
The Godfather
Francis Ford Coppola’s epic 1972 triple-hander opened with Don Vito Corleone hearing requests for favours during his daughter Connie’s wedding reception. The 27-minute sequence has been lauded as one of the most structurally brilliant movie openings of all time, for its ability to introduce the main characters and the dual themes of family and legacy that shape the Corleone clan for generations to come. Coppola used local Italian-Americans as extras, encouraging them to drink the homemade wine on offer and treat the event as an authentic Sicilian wedding Photograph: Cinetext/Allstar
Four Weddings and a Funeral
The most memorably comic wedding of the four on offer in Richard Curtis’s feel-good 1994 comedy was the second one, conducted by a nervous trainee priest played by Rowan Atkinson. As the service unfolded, Atkinson’s unfortunate man of the cloth confused the Holy Ghost with the Holy Goat, suggested the couple be “johnned in matrimony” and offended the bride by calling her an “awful wedded wife”. Atkinson has since revealed that Four Weddings and a Funeral is the only film of which he is “totally proud” Photograph: Sportsphoto/Allstar
Monsoon Wedding
Mira Nair’s vibrant 2001 film is set against the backdrop of monsoon season in Delhi, where the Verma family gathers from all corners of the globe to celebrate the arranged marriage of bride-to-be Aditi Verma to a man she barely knows. But Aditi still has feelings for her former lover and the four days and nights leading up to her chaotic and expensive nuptials are filled with various romantic entanglements. A perfect fusion of Bollywood and Hollywood, tradition and modernity, Nair once described the film as “A love story to my home city” Photograph: Public Domain
Mamma Mia
The highest-grossing film of all time at the UK box office, Mamma Mia proved our insatiable appetite for big white gowns, Abba songs and laughing at Pierce Brosnan in platforms. The 2008 film, adapted from the successful stage musical, tells the story of Sophie (played by Amanda Seyfried) organising her wedding on the idyllic Greek island where her mother (Meryl Streep) lives. Determined to track down her missing father, Sophie posts three invitations to three possible candidates. Mayhem ensues. As if wedding planning weren’t stressful enough already… Photograph: Rex Features
Muriel’s Wedding
Another film that capitalises on the seemingly magical combination of bridal gowns and Abba songs, Muriel’s Wedding rapidly achieved cult status on its release in 1994. In her breakthrough role, Toni Collette plays the overweight and socially awkward Muriel who steals money from her bullying father to set up house in Sydney with her hedonistic friend Rhonda (played by the then relatively unknown Rachel Griffiths). A bittersweet tale with a melancholy undercurrent, the film was a box office success and also introduced the phrase “You’re terrible, Muriel” into the English lexicon Photograph: Rex Features
My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding
This year’s hit Channel 4 documentary series claimed to provide a fascinating insight into the extravagant marriage ceremonies of Britain’s Romany community, but most viewers tuned in simply to gawp at the mahogany spray tans and excessive use of pink diamante. When non-traveller Sam Norton married her Gypsy fiance, Patrick Lee, she swept down the aisle in a 20-stone pink dress, complete with mechanical butterflies and fibreoptic lights. Her comment on the fantastical gown? “I can’t breathe. And I’m claustrophobic as well!” Photograph: Victor De Jesus/UNP/Channel 4
EastEnders
Deemed one of the television highlights of the year when it aired on 22 June 1989, Frank Butcher’s marriage to good-time girl Pat Wicks in the BBC soap EastEnders attracted 11.9 million viewers. The wedding, arranged by Frank’s redoubtable mother Mo, involved an open-air reception in Albert Square, complete with trestle tables, bunting and a Pearly King. Unfortunately, filming took place in the midst of severe gales on the soap’s set at Elstree Studios, Hertfordshire – a forecast, perhaps, of Frank and Pat’s stormy relationship in the years to come
Photograph: PR
Father of the Bride
Spencer Tracy stars as Stanley T Banks, the harassed and put-upon father of the bride in this razor-sharp 1950 comedy, directed by Vincente Minnelli, charting the travails of organising an expensive wedding for the family’s eldest daughter, Kay (played by Elizabeth Taylor). Banks alternates between being crotchety about the amount of money he is spending and hopelessly nostalgic remembering Kay as a little girl. “Someday in the far future I may be able to remember it with tender indulgence,” says Banks in the opening scene. “But not now” Photograph: Ronald Grant Archive
Footballers’ Wives
The wedding to which all wannabe glamour models and Wags aspire, the union of Kyle Pascoe and Chardonnay Lane is arguably the most surreally overblown marriage celebration ever seen on British television. The Snow White-themed nuptials saw Chardonnay feigning sleep, surrounded by seven children dressed as dwarves, until her groom arrived on horseback to awaken her with a kiss. After the ceremony, the happy couple sat on matching thrones (in homage to the Beckhams) surrounded by the popping flashbulbs of a celebrity magazine. Unforgettable Photograph: Public Domain
