Four Weddings and a Funeral

Was just making the point that Yesterday is even more ridiculous and far fetched , just musings about films really. I take your point though.

Well it's meant to be complete fiction. Not sure what your point is. We're you watching the film saying to yourself "well that would never happen in real life"?

Ahhh I must have got them confused with Angus and Laura then.

Are you thinking of Angus and Laura, who have twin girls? Bernard and Lydia don't have children during the film's time period.

This is from IMDB:

Based on the wedding invitations the timeline is as follows: in May, wedding number one (Angus and Laura), in August, wedding number two (Bernard and Lydia), in October, wedding number three (Carrie and Hamish) and Gareth's funeral, and in August, wedding number four (Charlie and Henrietta).

I assumed that Lydia was already pregnant when she married Bernard? I can't remember the dates though. I really enjoy rewatching it.

You called? 😂😂😂

I think Charles and Duckface's wedding is about a year after Gareth's funeral/Carrie's wedding. Duckface is (again inexplicably!) invited to Carrie's wedding and has a boyfriend there.

Maybe it's the demographic, I think it was more likely if upper class, upper middle class. I was a young teenager when the film came out but if you contrast that with British sitcoms like Men Behaving Badly, people just loved together or shows like the Word (which I shouldn't have really been watching) it was this ladette culture brewing so definitely not marriage.

Try watching Yesterday if you want complete fiction. I know that is Danny Boyle , but it reminded me of a Curtis film ( he may have been involved in too? Not sure really )
It makes four weddings seem real! Lol

But living together in the nineties was entirely ordinary!

The speedy weddings in FWAAF are, as many pps have said, purely a plot device to structure the film.

I mean, if we took Richard Curtis films as documentaries, it would be an odd old world.

Brits form a single, tight network of friends, vaguely Oxbridgy and satirical in tone, but always with one slightly kooky-looking woman who doesn't seem to come from the same world as the rest, one representative from Scotland or Wales, and with one gay or disabled person for variety.

Airports have minimal security. The PM wanders around the East End with one security guy chosen for his singing voice.

Americans are always thin, glamorous and sexually upfront. Brits are always bumbling and incapable of Using Their Words. London property prices are no reason why someone of modest means should not buy a large house in Notting Hill and run a failing bookshop.

I tried watching it recently, I think when it was on over Christmas. I lasted less than twenty minutes. It was an absolute mess.

There are more comedic scenes in LA than four weddings. Although I did like the Scottish man who sadly died and ended up having his service in a church in West Thurrock instead of a posh church in London. Overlooking the Dartford bridge and the gas works.

Everyone looks young in LA (except Bill Nighy🤣)

None of them are funny though

I did like the scene in LA where the PM ( Hugh Grant) tells his new secretary that he can call up the SAS to deal with her ex who called her fat. ‘ Nice people but a phone call away ‘
’ move the Japanese ambassador to 2 o ‘clock’
( paraphrasing , but these scenes made me laugh )

My parents got engaged after three weeks and married at six months. Weddings did used to come a lot sooner. It started slowing down I think once it became more normal for people to live together before marriage. No one bats an eye at people living together with several kids unmarried these days where as it used to be a scandal.

My mother moved directly from her parents house into a shared flat with my dad the day she got back from her honeymoon.

Coming back to the point of the thread though
DH and I met in 1985, went through renting, buying a house in 1990, married 1995 , DS 1999, DD 2002.
So nothing as quick as an 18 month whirlwind. Definitely no DC before marriage though .

And Hugh Grant was and still is a handsome bloke !

My DD favourite Love Actually quotes. ( Tpo be inserted into conversation where fit)

Eight is a lot of legs David
Just in cases
I look quite pretty ( in the voice)
I'm going for lunch,erm,early lunch
One night with Elton and you're as gay as a maypole
Yes. Ant or Dec

And not forgetting " Where the fuck is my fucking coat?"

I used to get Ant and Dec mixed up on their Saturday morning presenting days as well! They look so young in love actually. It is a funny little interlude.
The Bill Nighy character and his manager are the best ones in it along with Emma Thompson and Alan Rickman.

I always quote ‘Ant or Dec’ whenever I see them. I genuinely don’t know is which is which.

I got married in the 90s and we met / married after 6 months. It was pretty unusual at the time. Me and now DH married in 2020 after 13 years together.

Quite a few of my middle class friends got married after DC1 and before DC2. I think because of being mid thirties and aware of time being a premium!

My parents were married in the 80s within two years. DH and I were three years which felt quick for this day and age.

Angus and Laura had baby twins by the funeral so that must have been a year at least.

I also can't stand Carrie.

My Aunts and Uncles definitely got married quick by today’s standards. Probably partly because my Gran didn’t believe in living in sin. I clearly remember my Aunt not telling her she’d moved in with her fiancé before the wedding.

It wasn’t, no. Those were expensive times! The only thing that’s unusual is that we see people going from getting together to marriage very rapidly, like Bernard and Lydia, or even Carrie and Hamish, if we assume Carrie was single the first time she slept with Charles. But plot device rather than realism.