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'd agree with this.

In terms of the film, yes, that was just for the film, but I can't think of anyone I ever knew who "got engaged" for years and years. People generally got married within 18months of getting engaged.

As for Carrie wearing white/cream, it wasn’t a big deal.
Brides wore big, sweeping white dresses with a veil and carried flowers. There wasn’t any mistaking who the bride was.

It's a pretty good film, far better than Notting Hill and the less said about Love Actually, the better imo

WRT the white jacket she wore at the wedding my SIL wore a similar outfit to our wedding (black dress with white coat) and nobody thought anything of it because we weren't bridezillas in the 90s obsessed with policing people's outfits.

Got married in early ‘90s. Most people got engaged after 12-18 months, and married 12-18 months after that. You got married in your local church (or registery office) so you could have several weddings in the same two or three churches over a season, plus one of a handful hotels for receptions. We weren’t precious about venues in those days!

The main thing I took away from rewatching this is how much I disliked Carrie’s character!

In my experience 90's couples were engaged for 18 months to 2 years before they married. Very few got married within 3 months of knowing each other, any more than they do now or any other decade. So basically that was a plot device otherwise the film would've dragged on for hours!

I agree. Andi McDowell spoils the film for me.

I got married six months after ee met but.i. dont think this is usual.

'Even living together was frowned upon and oh my word you certainly did not have children before marriage.'

🤔

You must have been living in a different 1990s to me...

(or maybe you're referring to your particular vicar's beliefs)

It wasn’t the norm to live together or have children first in my circles either. Times were a changing, but it was still more normal to marry first.

@SkippitySkoppity "Even living together was frowned upon and oh my word you certainly did not have children before marriage."

Are you sure you mean the 1990's? I was living with my boyfriend in 1975 when I was 18 and it was all quite normal amongst my peer group. I even had a baby in 1977 (unmarried) and nobody fainted!

@Silverbirchleaf Agree. Andy McDowell ruins it. Totally uncharismatic, unlikeable and a poor fit with Hugh Grant's character.

Tbf Withnail and I is one of my favourite films ever

DH and I got married in the 1990s (born mid 1960s) and we had been together for 4 years. I knew very few people who got married within a few months.

Maybe it depends on your social circle, upbringing, and level of education. The girls I knew from school who left with little or no qualifications and went straight into a factory, got engaged at 18-19 and were married within a year. The girls/women who were more career driven, had better education, and had been to college (who usually ended up in a professional or well paid career) didn't get married quickly, (often 3-5 years after meeting their partner,) and they didn't get married until their late 20s/early 30s.

So no, in my world it was not normal to get married within a few months of meeting someone. Never has been. Still isn't.

Lydia was pregnant so shotgun wedding and Hamish was old so time was of the essence.

We knew each other for 3 - 4 years before we got married in 1990.

I went with my mum to see it at our local cinema, I think on the opening night. It was a sell out and the tickets were being sold as in a theatre, where you had to choose your seats. I know that's how they're sold now anyway, but back then it was very unusual - normally you would just buy a ticket for a film and sit anywhere vacant.

DH and I married in the 90s after being together for three years. No "exclusivity talk" back then as it was taken for granted when you started dating that you had each chosen be solely with each other. Messing about with someone else = cheating sleazeball.

Weddings could be extravagant, modest, or anything in between, be it 90s, 80s, 70s or earlier, or later. That's always been a matter of choice, budget etc. regardless of when a wedding took place.

Yes this was to get married in a church ( or my local church at least)
The vicar refused to christen my friend’s baby because she was not married.
Times were very different.
Absolutely none of this business of dictating what guests wore either.

I could never work out if Andie M was a terrible actress, or whether it was the script which was terrible.
I think I heard it mentioned that another actor had accepted the role but for some reason Andie M was shoehorned it at the last minute.

It's a plot device - but remember they're all posh people who wouldn't have to save long and hard to afford a nice wedding. I think very long engagements are more a working class thing.

My all time favourite.
My boyfriend at the time introduced me to it back in '94.
He later upset me very much when we split.
That film, though, is one of the few things I do not associate with him from our time together.
Like all great films, it took on a life of its own.

I really liked her in Groundhog Day but that was a much better film all round imo. She also played a very likeable character in that

4 weddings is one of my favorite films. I got married in 1994, not long after its release. I listened to the soundtrack while I was getting ready the morning of my wedding and I wore a wreath thing on my head like Henrietta instead of a veil.
We got married 4 months after our first date so perhaps things did happen more quickly in the 90s.

Anyway, Liz Hurley in THAT dress.
If you know what I mean, you're now officially past it. 😁

Groundhog Day!
I knew there was something she was good in!

Maybe she was told to play cold and aloof in FW and she just wasn't good at that - that scene in the rain near the end was truly shockingly bad.

The rest of the film is great fun though.