I’m watching four weddings and a funeral

[Frynye]

I’m watching four weddings and a funeral for the first time since I was about 15 and I have questions. When did everyone stop wearing hats to weddings and why are so many people (Carrie mainly) wearing white to weddings

I love the line; 'That Branson chap is doing awfully well'.

Well, yes, but as that was a joke photo, the implication was that she didn’t marry.

Which is not some fate worse than death, obviously, but as she’d been carrying a torch for Charles for years (I’d vaguely assumed since their Oxford days, as she says she first saw him ‘across a crowded lawn’, which suggests a garden party or ball), it would have been nice to see some indication she’d moved on and been happy with someone else! Even awful Hen bags a good-looking guy! Gareth finds love again.

(I always thought it was clear Gareth and Matthew were a couple even before that scene where the rest of them talk about not having noticed that two of them were essentially married already…)

Surely not! It was a joke, a deliberately badly cut-and pasted photo putting Fiona with someone famous and ineligible! Implying she hadn’t found someone to marry!

That wasn't how I took it. I thought it was meant to look like a publicity shot of them at some event and it was just not great quality because photoshop wasn't too great then and obviously they weren't going to get the real Prince Charles to pose for the film! So the mocked-upness of it was due to technical constraints, not to be deliberately poor as an element of the plot.

Just about my favourite comedy film of all time.
Dig out the DVD and give it a viewing every year just to remind me of how good it is.
Went to a couple of weddings like that back in the day and yes, hats were still a thing well into the 90's and beyond.

Also back to the hats! So you wore your hat to the ceremony and for the pics. Did you wear the hat for the meal and party, if not where did you put them!

I always thought Charles should’ve ended up with Fiona. She was so much better than Carrie! ( I wasn’t a fan of Andie MacDowell but really like Kristin Scott Thomas as an actor.)

Hats - we got married in 2000 and there were many hats!! DM went for one the size of a cartwheel. 2001 we went to 6 weddings. Still many hats! Hat numbers had dwindled significantly by the next wedding we went to in 2005.

I think so too! Watch it over and over but it’s NOT popular in my family.

It is also quite famous for having the worst delivered line in a film ever, isn’t it! Carrie: “is it still raining? I hadn’t noticed”.

It never occurred to me as anything other than a joke photo implying Fiona hadn’t married. The film came out in 1994, Charles and Diana had been separated for a couple of years, and the Jonathan Dimbleby interview when C admitted to adultery came out the same year.

Who knows? Only Richard Curtis can confirm!

It is sad about Scarlet! I first saw Charlotte Coleman in Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, she was amazing in it!

Me and my kids say this (with her accent) literally every time we are out in the rain! 🤣

When I watched it as a teen I didnt find Carrie unlikeable.....and then when I watched more recently, completely changed my mind!

As an adult watching it, the attitudes toward homosexuality really surprised (in a sad way) me (how they were referred to as friends - although obviously their close friends knew and accepted them) its easy to forget how fairly recent gay marriage/civil partnerships are.

I also went to many similar weddings in the 90s. My favourite wedding outfit was a dress with flowers on a white background. I wouldn’t have worn totally white but I think people on here have got very extreme with it. No-one ever hinted that it was inappropriate and it didn’t cross my mind. After reading a thread on here once, I looked at old photos and it was pretty common and there were also cream and beige dresses which would probably be frowned upon now.

Also how notable it was being gay may have depended on where you lived. I graduated and started work in London the same year the film was released and there were several openly gay people in our office and no-one batted an eyelid. My sister and I found it hilarious when our mum was tasked with breaking the news that a childhood friend was gay because we’d known for years and it was a total non-issue.

A sequel would be lovely. All the kids would be grown up now, could be a lot of fun.

Wasn't there a kind-of sequel in the form of a Comic Relief sketch a few years ago?

I assumed the Fiona and Prince Charles photo was a photo of their wedding day. Charles is wearing similar to the uniform he wore at wedding to Diana.
I saw it recently and though slightly dated has held up reasonably well.

The champagne was flowing and they got slung in a corner, on a table or taken back to your room if you were staying in the venue.

I am using my own long life experience. It is not a MN invention. It is basic wedding etiquette dating back many many decades, long before there were websites or an internet to host them. Any etiquette book or advice column would mention it. Please feel free to do your own basic googling, though.

"Wearing white is still considered to be an absolute wedding etiquette no-no. While it is unlikely that anyone will mistake you for the bride, this is not the day to break with long-standing traditions. The only exception would be if the couple has specifically requested that guests dress in white or other variations such as cream or ivory."

thebritishschoolofexcellence.com/social-etiquette/wedding-etiquette/

IIRC, that was Helena aka Miss Piggy (whose mother was Mrs Piggy and had made a pass at Charles) who'd lost weight. Not Henrietta.

I still think of Anna Chancellor as Duckface whenver I see her in anything! She's a very good actress though.

I was also 13 when I saw it in the cinema, and I didn’t realise they were a couple either 😅.

It might have been that they used the word friend, yes, and maybe the age difference? And also Charles and Scarlett lives together without being a couple.

I did get it in the second watch 😉

Also assumed it was a joke. Never considered she actually married Prince Charles!

I was married in 96 and only the mums wore hats, it was a registry office though, so maybe if it was a church wedding there would have been hats.

@deplorabelle Henrietta was never fat. It was Helena(another of Charles’ exes) and her mother(who made a pass at Charles) who are the butt of the fat jokes. “We’ve both lost a lot of weight since then!”.
Sorry to be pedantic! I have watched this film far too many times. I totally get your point about Curtis’s writing in this area—also implying Natalie,in Love Actually, is fat. I’m very happy that type of humour is no longer acceptable.

I don't think she married him i assumed it was just a "fling".