Seems Nuptial Life Is Often Close to Art

Here comes the bride--Hollywood style.

Over the years Hollywood has put its spin on one of its favorite conceits--the wedding: “It Happened One Night,” “The Philadelphia Story,” “The Bride Came C.O.D.,” “June Bride,” “The Palm Beach Story,” “Father of the Bride” (both versions), “Four Weddings and a Funeral” and “My Best Friend’s Wedding” all present versions of taking the plunge.

But how accurate are these portrayals?

We asked a panel of experts, who have been intimately involved with weddings, to critique how this ritual looks on celluloid.

Darcy Miller, weddings editor, Martha Stewart Living magazine

“In general, Hollywood picks up on the most stereotypical things that go along with weddings, the emotions and certain details, and then exaggerates them. In [the 1991 remake of] ‘Father Of the Bride,’ they hire the wedding planner, which a lot of people do, and in ‘My Best Friend’s Wedding’ they deal with telling your best friend of the opposite sex that you’re getting married--all the things that happen in real life, but then they completely exaggerate it.

“In ‘Father of the Bride’ there’s the scene where the guy gives his fiancee a blender, and it becomes this crisis. I spend so much time with brides, and nine out of 10 times there’s some sort of major crisis; it’s such an emotional time, and there are so many people involved and there’s the stress and the aggravation of the wedding.

“And in ‘My Best Friend’s Wedding’ the bride is in this beautiful dress and Julia Roberts is in that purple thing. That’s pretty accurate--you have all these brides who are very modern and have very good taste, but at the end of the day, the bridesmaids look like bridesmaids.

“When all is said and done, most people don’t notice mistakes. At one wedding we shot for the magazine, the bride had ordered a cake that was a really beautiful taupe color. When the cake was being driven to the site it was next to the window, and the part that was exposed to the sun turned green. So there was this half green, half taupe cake.

“I got on the phone to every bakery and nothing could be done. So we exposed the other half to the sun and turned the other half green, and of course it looked beautiful and the guests never knew.

“I probably look at wedding films in a different way. I look at the centerpieces at the reception, how the church is decorated. Usually it’s the typical flowers with ribbons, but once in a while you see something different, like in ‘Sense and Sensibility’ they carried the cake out on sticks, and that inspired us to do something similar.”

Alana Stewart, previously married to George Hamilton and Rod Stewart, former talk show host, soon to launch her own jewelry line on the Home Shopping Network

“It’s hard for me to relate to traditional wedding scenes in movies because I’ve never had a traditional wedding. George and I went to Las Vegas in 1973 on the spur of the moment and I was wearing jeans and some Indian jewelry. I grabbed my dog and we went with Colonel Parker on Elvis’ plane--unfortunately Elvis wasn’t there--and we had a very nontraditional wedding.

“Rod and I got married quietly at Tina Sinatra’s house, with Tina, her husband at the time, and my son, Ashley. We didn’t want a big to-do with the press. Then we had a big party afterward at L’Ermitage.

“I think having a big wedding is a really lovely thing to do on one hand, and who knows if my daughter, Kimberly, will do it or not.

“My son got married [to actress-model Angie Everhart] in a big, traditional wedding last year, and I saw what they went through. I wasn’t really involved but I watched the process. To me it’s just so stressful and expensive for something that lasts a few hours. It’s complicated and so much work. But a wedding is a great, great topic to do a comedy about.”

Loly Hinojosa, director of catering, the Peninsula Hotel, Beverly Hills

“Just like in ‘Father of the Bride,’ money is a big concern, especially with today’s economy. People don’t really know how much anything is going to cost. They may get quoted a price and say, ‘That’s great,’ but they have no idea that they have to add the invitations, the photographers, the video, the dress, the cost of the rehearsal dinner--everything starts adding up. And all of a sudden they say, ‘Oh my God, we’re spending $150,000 on this wedding!’ and they thought the hotel would do it all.

“A lot of times I find that the films don’t really exaggerate--there are a lot of really funny things that happen in weddings. I know people like the wedding planner Martin Short played in ‘Father of the Bride.’ They really get into it, making the wedding a showplace, the glamour of it all.

“And you do have those moments where things go wrong--no matter how much planning you do, you always find that something tends to happen.”

Robert A. Ringler, nondenominational minister, Bel-Air Wedding Ceremonies

“ ‘Father of the Bride’ really appeals to middle America, and middle America still believes the father of the bride pays for the wedding. That’s not necessarily the case anymore--often the couples themselves pay for the wedding, and they exert a certain kind of control over it. But they’re often still amazed at the cost, and there are still couples that overproduce their weddings. They have to bring in everything, like gospel singers. Bigger is not always better.

“A lot of times movies don’t show much or any of the ceremony. With traditional religions there’s a fixed script and you must follow the rules. In my case the couples write their own ceremony because they care enough about their guests not to bore them to death.

“Then the ceremony is the highlight. Also, today more and more people have children from a past marriage, and they’ll talk about what it’s like to be married again, and have special vows for the kids, and what it’s like to take each other to be a family, and then everybody’s in tears. That’s why it’s too bad that movies don’t show that, it’s much more relevant.”