EMILY FENG, HOST:
The warm weather and my Instagram feed tell me we are entering wedding season. That means the flowers, the music, passionate declarations of love and the occasional embarrassing moment.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "RACHEL GETTING MARRIED")
ANNE HATHAWAY: (As Kym) I would like to thank you all for coming and welcome you, even though I haven't seen most of you since my latest stretch in the big house. But you all look fabulous.
FENG: That's Anne Hathaway giving a very uncomfortable speech as Kym recently out of rehab in the 2008 film "Rachel Getting Married." There are some weddings from the big screen that we remember as if we were there ourselves, like in "The Godfather"...
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "THE GODFATHER")
MARLON BRANDO: (As Don Vito Corleone) Accept this justice as a gift on my daughter's wedding day.
FENG: ...Or "Bridesmaids"...
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "BRIDESMAIDS")
MAYA RUDOLPH: (As Lillian) Why can't you just be happy for me, and then go home and talk behind my back later like a normal person?
FENG: ...Or "Wedding Crashers."
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "WEDDING CRASHERS")
VINCE VAUGHN: (As Jeremy Grey) We got three really big weeks ahead of us. It's wedding season, kid. I got us down for 17 of them already.
OWEN WILSON: (As John Beckwith) OK. And how many of them are cash bars?
FENG: In this week's Cineplexity, we're talking weddings in the movies. Here in the studio with me is NPR senior editor Barrie Hardymon and ALL THINGS CONSIDERED producer Kathryn Fink. Hi there to you both.
BARRIE HARDYMON, BYLINE: Hi.
KATHRYN FINK, BYLINE: Hello.
FENG: Kathryn, what do you think of when you think weddings in movies?
FINK: So I'm really in the thick of the wedding chapter of my life right now. I went to seven weddings last year.
FENG: What?
FINK: You know, I wouldn't say that they had the cinematic quality of the weddings we see on screen. They've been pretty drama-free. I wasn't seeing, you know, a drunken best man speech, like in "The Wedding Singer," for example.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "THE WEDDING SINGER")
STEVE BUSCEMI: (As David "Dave" Velt (SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "[TITLE]") ri) 'Cause Harold, you know, he's always been the dependable one. And I've always been the screwed up one, right, Dad? (Laughter).
FINK: People are not hooking up like they do in "Wedding Crashers." But they - you know, they've been pleasant. There have been some fun moments.
FENG: Barrie, what do you think of when you think of wedding movies?
HARDYMON: Well, so here's the thing about wedding movies is there's, like, nothing more conventional - right? - than a wedding movie 'cause it's about the most conventional of human experiences. It is something that we can feel both good about, bad about, whatever. And honestly, it shows so many different kinds of being human. You have to navigate family dynamics. You know, you have to navigate money, you know, pressure. I think that one of the nice things about talking about wedding movies is you get to talk about sort of the variety of the human experience in a funny way.
FENG: What are some of your favorite wedding movies? Kathryn, why don't you start first?
FINK: So for me, it's got to be "27 Dresses," starring Katherine Heigl and James Marsden.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "27 DRESSES")
JAMES MARSDEN: (As Kevin) Twenty-seven dresses - you got to be kidding me.
KATHERINE HEIGL: (As Jane) Strange as it sounds, I've had some really good times in those dresses, weird as that may be.
FINK: It came out when I was 14, and basically, she is this perpetual bridesmaid. In the opening scene, she's going back and forth across New York City to two different people's weddings she's a bridesmaid in.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "27 DRESSES")
MARSDEN: (As Kevin) You were in two weddings in one night, weren't you? It's a little upsetting, don't you think?
HEIGL: (As Jane) Well, they're both really, really good friends of mine, and their weddings happened to be on the same night. So what was I supposed to do?
FINK: I think it's just really fun and kind of cynical. Like, it gets into a lot of stuff about the wedding industrial complex. And then one other thing I think is really funny about "27 Dresses" is she goes to all these theme weddings, and so I thought to myself when I was watching this movie, like, I, too, one day will go to a scuba diving wedding or a Goth wedding or a cowgirl wedding.
FENG: Totally (ph) realistic. Yeah.
FINK: But in reality, the weddings I go to all are a little bit of the same, honestly.
FENG: And what about you, Barrie?
HARDYMON: Well, my favorite movie that is about navigating weddings themselves, which is one specific kind, is actually "Palm Springs."
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "PALM SPRINGS")
ANDY SAMBERG: (As Nyles) The second you fall asleep, it all just goes back to the start.
CRISTIN MILIOTI: (As Sarah) Well, then what's the point of living?
SAMBERG: (As Nyles) We kind of have no choice but to live.
HARDYMON: Because they are in a time loop, it's very much a "Groundhog Day" kind of movie. And you see them, you know, go to her wedding a million times, and there's like - there are just so many different ways to go to a wedding. As Kathryn was saying, you can go and be sloppy. You can have a best man going crazy. You can have a bunch of hookups. You can meet the person you love. So there are those kinds of things. So that's my favorite one, I think, about attending weddings. I think my favorite nostalgia movie for weddings is actually "The Best Man."
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "THE BEST MAN")
TAYE DIGGS: (As Harper Stewart) A long, long, long time ago, Mia slept with your best man.
HARDYMON: Oh, my God, it is so, so good and also has some really good puns in it because Taye Diggs, who plays the lead, he's a writer in it, and they regularly refer to him as, like, Langston Snooze, which is truly still one of my favorite puns. Anyway, I think the ones that are about relationships and friendships, I would say, "Best Friend's Wedding."
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "MY BEST FRIEND'S WEDDING")
JULIA ROBERTS: (As Julianne Potter) I realize this comes at a very inopportune time, but I really have this gigantic favor to ask of you. Choose me.
HARDYMON: I love how much that sort of is one of those movies that kind of allowed me to think a little bit more about where my friends were in life might not be where I was and that that was OK.
FINK: I also want to give a shout out to "The Wedding Singer," which I rewatched this week, and I had forgotten that it was in this movie, but that is the movie that gave us the phrase church tongue.
HARDYMON: Oh, my God, incredible (ph).
FINK: Do either of you remember this?
FENG: Please define this for me.
HARDYMON: Yes.
FINK: OK. Church tongue - so there's a scene where Drew Barrymore is getting married soon, and her friend is walking her through the different types of kisses she could have at the altar, you know, open mouth, closed mouth, tongue, no tongue.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "THE WEDDING SINGER")
CHRISTINE TAYLOR: (As Holly) I say that it's OK for it to be an open-mouth kiss.
DREW BARRYMORE: (As Julia) And I say that it's the type of occasion where people dress up, so it's not appropriate.
FINK: And she practices her kiss with Adam Sandler who - spoiler alert - she later falls in love with and does not get married to the man who is her fiance at the time. And what they settle on is church tongue. That's, like, just the appropriate amount of tongue for getting married in a church.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "THE WEDDING SINGER")
BARRYMORE: (As Julia) Not porno tongue - church tongue.
FINK: You know, I watched this as a kid, and I was like, I've never thought about what kind of kiss a person is supposed to have at the altar.
HARDYMON: Yeah.
FENG: Why do we like to watch weddings so much on the silver screen? What does that say about our understandings of love and of relationships and marriage?
HARDYMON: You know, one thing I will say that I, like, over the years, have really thought a little bit about in terms of relationships is how much needs to be disclosed before the wedding, which is actually a stand-in for the marriage. The process of planning a wedding tells you about, you know, what's important to them in their past, you know, how much money they want to spend, what's important to the family, to your family, to their family, how do they get along, all those things.
FINK: I feel growing up watching a lot of these movies gave me a very specific idea of what weddings should look like and also what our relationship to them should be. I think some of my big takeaways are like, there's a high likelihood you'll be left at the altar.
(LAUGHTER)
FINK: It happens in "The Wedding Singer." "Runaway Bride" - she leaves a man at the altar three times...
FENG: Yeah.
HARDYMON: Yeah.
FINK: ...At the very beginning of the movie. So growing up, I was like, this may very well happen to me. In fact, the very first wedding I ever went to was for a family friend, and I was a flower girl. And I remember, you know, the wedding hadn't started yet. We were behind the scenes, and the bride was crying. And so here I thought, OK, she's getting cold feet. If someone is experiencing this, like, rush of emotion, it's because, like, they don't want to get married.
FENG: It has to be.
HARDYMON: (Laughter).
FINK: It has to be, you know, not just that they're making this big decision and, like, heading into the next chapter of their lives, but like, oh, man, she might, like, jet out of here any minute now.
FENG: And it sounds like you want drama, so maybe you were secretly hoping she would jet out of there.
FINK: (Laughter) Right? No, no, I won't say that - maybe a little bit. But yeah, I just think there's so many funny takeaways from these movies if you look at them as, like, a collection. Like, people are only ever getting married on a whim. Sometimes that's a great thing. It's like the height of passion, and then sometimes it's a terrible thing. Weddings are mostly for white people, I think, is one of the takeaways from this. I also think there's this trope that, like, men don't actually want to get married, that this is sort of like a way to pay their dues and appease their future wife. And like I said, you know, in many cases, the woman also doesn't want to get married and may very well leave her fiance high and dry.
HARDYMON: "Runaway Bride" came out when I was a kid, and I was like, oh, this is great. I actually can leave if I want. Like, to me, I was like, oh...
FINK: That's good news.
HARDYMON: ...There is an open - you know, like...
FINK: That's a nice flip side, yeah.
HARDYMON: Exactly, (inaudible).
FINK: I'm not locked into this forever.
HARDYMON: I better get a horse outside.
FINK: Just in case, where are your running shoes?
FENG: I better learn how to ride a horse. Yeah.
(LAUGHTER)
FENG: Are there any movie weddings that you wish you could have attended?
FINK: I mean, one that's on my list is "Hitch."
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "NOW THAT WE FOUND LOVE")
HEAVY D AND THE BOYZ: (Singing) Now that we found love, what are we gonna do with it?
FINK: The dance scenes at the very end at that wedding, like, they're having the best time. No one has ever had that much fun at a wedding before or since.
FENG: (Laughter).
FINK: So yeah, I would love to be there.
HARDYMON: I would say, and this is maybe going to be a controversial pick because it is - we all know this is a terrible movie. But boy, I would have liked to go to either of the "Sex And The City" movie weddings.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "SEX AND THE CITY")
KIM CATTRALL: (As Samantha Jones) Big's not here.
KRISTIN DAVIS: (As Charlotte York) But we're 25 minutes late.
SARAH JESSICA PARKER: (As Carrie Bradshaw) Well, did anybody call him?
HARDYMON: Just mostly because do you remember the head piece and the whole situation? It was so gorgeous. Like, that's the one that I would have liked to at least just have surveyed the church.
FINK: But Big didn't show up for one of them.
HARDYMON: That's the one.
FINK: It was beautiful.
HARDYMON: I just wanted to survey the church, you know?
FINK: Yeah.
HARDYMON: And then maybe, like, go and have Samantha feed me yogurt in bed.
(LAUGHTER)
FENG: That was NPR's Barrie Hardymon and Kathryn Fink. Thank you for joining me.
FINK: Thanks.
HARDYMON: Thank you.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.
