Four Weddings and a Funeral

[TheBlueRobin]

Watched this film tonight, bit of a comfort film and love anything from Richard Curtis. What I hadn't really paid attention to before was how soon people got married? Lydia and Bernard after 3 months. Carrie and Hamish after a few months?

Was this more normal in the 90s or just a plot device? I'm getting married this year but was born in the 90s and been with my partner for nearly 8 years. Most of my cousins got married in the 90s in their early twenties after 1-2 years together.

Yabu - that was normal in the 90s
Yanbu - definitely unusual, people took longer to get married.

I was thinking all this while watching. Why on earth were they at Hamish and Carrie's wedding and how awful and manipulative Carrie was. Also wearing white at the first wedding. I know it's a rom com and happy endings but I don't think her and Charles would last (I know it shows them with a baby in the end credits). Such a fun film though with brilliant characters.

It’s just so we don’t have to have TWO YEARS LATER in between each wedding, like, as pps said, the vague handwaving that allows Charles and his group of friends to go to all the weddings, though Carrie has only met some of them once and is supposedly a glamorous Vogue journalist who comes and goes between the US and UK and is unlikely to lack friends in either place ‘to make up for the gruesome stiffs Hamish knows’.

Or even minor stuff like Tom not having invited everyone to stay in his nearby giant stately home long before the first wedding, rather than only mentioning it as everyone’s leaving. Again just necessary to separate Charles from his friends so he can ‘skulk’ with Carrie, but a bit implausible. Or why would nice Bernard and Lydia have made a seating plan to separate Charles from all his friends and sits him at a table consisting entirely of ex-girlfriends. Again, just to show us Charles is a serial monogamist, but it suggests a desire to make him miserable for no reason!

The thing that grated on me last time I saw it is that Charles’ deaf brother David, who only really has one plot role, halting Charles’ wedding to Duckface, is an asshole, using BSL to perv over Carrie’s breasts in front of her and asking Charles if he’s slept with her because she doesn’t understand sign. Ew. Again, I get it. Comedy. But there’s something unpleasantly arf arf about it, especially as it’s happening as Charles is plucking up his courage to declare his love to Carrie while having a blokey ‘nice tits’ conversation with his brother.

Still love that film.

I got married in the mid 90's and in my social group three years seemed to be the average time between meeting and marrying.

I have friends who married within a year of meeting and that was considered unusual. Their marriage lasted 24 years before he had an affair and they divorced.

7 couples in our close friendship group married between 1995 and 1996 - it felt like we were at weddings all the time. We were all in our mid 20s. Three of those couples are now divorced but did have long marriages.

It was a plot device.

I think Angus and Laura turn up either at Gareth’s funeral or Charles’ wedding, possibly both, and I think they might have baby twins. Lydia’s family look like they’re absolutely minted so a lavish wedding could probably happen quite quickly, maybe not in three months though!

I got married in 1993. We had known each other for 14 years, going out for 10 and living together for 8. And are still going strong 33 years later. So if it was a "thing" we certainly bucked the trend

Not the point of this thread but agree with some others, on a rewatch Carrie was awful and I really didn't want Charles to end with her, I was rooting for Kristin Scott Thomas's character (that woman is stunning)

I also always feel sad when I watch that Charlotte Coleman died so young...Marmalade atkins was one of my fave characters as as child! She was such a charismatic and interesting actress.

They all smoke in it too. Indoors😱

Well they would. It was made 13 years before the smoking ban.

Thanks, I was completely unaware of that 🙄

And Fiona makes it look sexy, in an old-school Hollywood glamour kind of way.

1000? Are you a vicar?!

Anyway. DH and I got engaged after a month and were married six months later. Late 90s.

I first watched the film on a plane. Instead of all the fucks at the begunnibf when they overslept, they dubbed it with variants of "bugger" which I still think was funnier and I'm no prude. I cried so hard during the funeral scene, the flight attendant asked if I was okay. It obviously hit a nerve.

Fiona is stunning, especially in the scene where she confesses her feelings to Charles. Good Lord 🔥

I know it can be picked apart and tutted at but I do love Four Weddings. A real comfort watch for me. Even though I'd wail in anguish if I actually had to move in those chinless circles.

• I said begunnibf and I meant it!

Most of my friends in the 90’s lived together and had kids before marriage. It’s just a movie.

Plot. I think people generally got engaged after dating a couple years and then it was a year after engagement to get married? After all not a church is unlikely to be available in under three months. Don’t think that’s changed much. Maybe more couples are waiting longer and paying for it themselves now?

It was released in 1994.
And Wet Wet Wet was no. 1 for 16 weeks. Or a million years. I can never remember which.

One of the few advantages of middle age is you can point these things out without thinking.

Never seen it. Never wanted to see it.
Probably too busy watching Withnail and I on video.
Though that was released in 1987, it became a cult classic later.

You went to a thousand weddings in 10 years ? I'm assuming it's your line of work? I'm not sure I've even met that many people in my life 😅

I'd always assumed there was a year between each wedding🙃

It is the finest film ever made.

Plot device. Andi McDowell was poorly cast, there was zero chemistry between her and HG. Her character was very unlikeable.

I don't think the church is usually the stumbling block. You need about a month, because the banns need to be read on three Sundays. Reception venues may be more of an issue, and of course you need to give enough notice that your guests can keep the date free - under three months means some may well have holidays or other commitments that would be difficult to get out of.

Agree with Prue Ramsay, Carrie was completely unlikeable. And no, no chemistry between her and HG

Kristen S-T was so much more likeable

People tended to be together for a few years in tne 80s pre marriage and a few lived together first then got married.
I mostly remember people getting divorced in the 90s tbh!
I don’t like Carrie at all really. She seems smug and rather a cold character.

Weddings were generally still bigger then. You invited more guests and most people had a clear daytime and night time event. The daytime event was for closer family and friends. The evening event was where you invited everyone. Work colleagues, wider family members, your parents friends, neighbours.
Weddings were still held in either a church or a register office.
Most first time married couples got married in a church, then had the reception fairly locally. The evening do was either at the same place, or if different a church hall, or pub back room.
My mum’s friend did the catering for my evening do.
The vicar was very particular about who he would and would not marry. Certainly no divorcees. Even living together was frowned upon and oh my word you certainly did not have children before marriage.
Anyone who didn’t confirm to these strict criteria had to make do with the register office.
Church blessings were also a thing. This was when you did not meet the criteria for marrying in a church so had to marry in the register office. Then you could have a blessing ceremony in the church. Still wearing a big white dress with bridesmaids and all the trimmings. Hymns, ushers etc etc just you were not technically married in the church the vicar would ‘bless’ the bride and groom and make it all ok.
Seems very strange nowadays.