7 Of The Funniest Wedding Movies

Fancy watching some movies featuring brides to get you ready for your big day as well as learning to keep your inner bridezilla under control? These 7 movies all deal with two things that go together like a horse and carriage: love and marriage…as well as wedding planning, bridesmaid tantrums, marital meltdown and the insanity that can ensue when you try to make your most vivid bridal dreams a reality.

If nothing else these movie picks are guaranteed to give you a laugh ahead of your own nuptials:

1. Bridesmaids (2011)
Starring Kristen Wiig, Melissa McCarthy, Maya Rudloph and Rebel Wilson and directed by Paul Feig
This is one of the best movies about weddings ever penned and is a riotous laugh from start to finish, with bridezilla behaviour, deranged bridesmaid feuds, bachelorette parties, female in-fighting, jealousy and the final triumph of friendship even in the midst of deep-seated wedding-planning insanity.
It’s the perfect movie to watch with your own bridesmaids to remind everyone that having a laugh together is perhaps the best possibility your wedding day can bring for you and those you love. Also a wry reminder of what really matters – not taking wedding planning to the point of insanity, keeping female competitiveness in check, and not ending up with a wedding dress by an elite designer that is a hideous affront to fashion.
Why Can’t You Just Be Happy For Me?

2. Bride Wars (2009)
Starring Anne Hathaway (Emma) and Kate Hudson (Liv)
Diehard best friends Emma and Liz turn into frenemies and crazed bridezillas when they both get booked for the same wedding venue on the same day after an error by their wedding planner. “If I was your wedding I’d sleep with one eye open,” says Hudson’s crazy bride-to-be to her former bestie, played by an ever more competitive Hathaway, determined not to have second best for her big day. Another brilliant send up of bridal mania that will make you die laughing at the outrageous lengths some of us will go to when it comes to creating the perfect nuptials.
Bridal Sabotage

3. Father of the Bride (1991)
Starring Steve Martin, Diane Keaton and Nancy Myers
Martin is at his comedic best as the uptight and increasingly demented father of the bride who takes his wedding anxieties much too far because he feels his daughter is much too precious to marry her chosen guy, and baulks constantly as the flamboyant wedding planner transforms his home into a dream wedding venue. A brilliant satire about the familial tensions that can arise when two people decide to marry and their closest relatives struggle to process the new set up. Finally, it’s an affectionate look at the difficulties fathers face in letting go and accepting their daughters’ grown-up decisions.
Meeting Wedding Planner Franck Eggelhofer

4. I Give It A Year (2013)
Written and directed by Dan Mazer and starring Rose Byrne, Rafe Spall, Anna Faris and Simon Baker
Ambitious high-flyer Nat (Rose Byrne) and struggling writer Josh (Rafe Spall) fall in love at first sight at a party and, after seven months together, they decide to marry. The film highlights their struggles during their first year of marriage, switching back and forth from flashbacks of the year’s action to a marriage-guidance counselor’s office. Their wedding goes as planned despite many friends’ comments that the marriage will not last, an embarrassing best-man’s speech, and a coughing priest. The film also features a brilliantly demented wedding planner – who is also an airhostess on a lot of valium and keeps switching between directing wedding guests to pointing out the emergency exits.
I Give It A Year Stephen Merchant’s Best Man Speech

5. Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994)
Directed by Mike Newell and starring Andie McDowell, Hugh Grant and Simon Callow
Across four weddings and a funeral a group of friends and lovers experience both the joys and stresses of weddings and the sorrow of an untimely funeral. This iconic film has brides, beleaguered bridesmaids, ecstatic and doubt-ridden grooms, illicit liaisons and frank confessions that combine to make this a classic exploration of love, marriage, humour and loss.
Will You Agree Not To Marry Me?

6. Mamma Mia! (2008)
Starring Meryl Streep, Amanda Seyfried, Piers Brosnan, Colin Firth and Stellen Skarsgard
The British-American-Swedish musical rom com was developed from the West End musical of the same name which is based on the songs of the immensely catchy and uber successful pop group ABBA. The title naturally originates from ABBA’s 1975 chart-topper Mamma Mia. Sam (Brosnan), Harry (Colin Firth) and Bill (Stellan Skarsgard) are all potential fathers of Sophie (Amanda Seyfried).
Her beautiful, energetic and song-loving mother Donna is played by Meryl Streep, and hit after hit is delivered with a lot of dancing as Sophie’s wedding day approaches and the question of who should walk her down the aisle is naturally complicated. A film about love and dancing, flirtation, confusion and sisterhood, the bride Sophie is at the centre of the action as she prepares for her big day. Another perfect bride-to-be movie confection to bring out your inner dancing queen.
Honey, Honey (Amanda Seyfried)

7. 27 Dresses (2008)
Starring Katherine Heigl and James Marsden
Jane (Heigl) has been a bridesmaid 27 times and relished every minute of it, but wonders if she will ever get to be the bride. She even finds herself planning the wedding of her younger sister. Romance begins to blossom after initial passive-aggressive encounters between Jane and the cynical wedding reporter Kevin (Marsden). A film about love and marriage that addresses the frustrations of the eternal bridesmaid with a happy ever after ending that will make you smile. And here’s the perk of being a repeated bridesmaid: in this movie all 27 of the brides Jane walked down the aisle behind turn up as bridesmaids to return her generosity on her own wedding day.
Trying On All 27 Bridesmaid Dresses

By Jo McCann, Excalibur Press

SUMMER 2017 EDITION AVAILABLE TO BUY ONLINE NOW