You’re likely consumed with your wedding, so it might be therapeutic to review some famous weddings that had either horrendous problems or were hysterically funny. So read a book or watch a movie – or both! It will help you deflate. Here are our favourites:
Books on marriage
1. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte. After tremendous trials and tribulations, including a horrid childhood, a mad wife in the attic, an aborted attempt to get married and a catastrophic fire, there’s still an interesting ending. Have a hanky handy.
2. Anne of Green Gables by L. M. Montgomery. We all fell in love with Anne as she was growing up and finally married Gilbert Blythe. It’s a good excuse to read a feel-good story from your childhood. The book Little Women by Louisa May Alcott also falls into this category – they all get married to different types of men for different reasons.
3. The Edible Woman by Margaret Atwood. Slowly the main character in this book feels eaten away, bit by bit. We’ve come a long way since Atwood wrote this Canadian classic in the 1960s.
4. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. Another 18th century read – but it doesn’t get any better than this. You may be worried about where, at your reception, to seat the ex-wives and step-brothers in our complicated world of blended families, but that’s not a patch on the rules around finding a spouse back in the strict social strata of pre-Victorian England.
5. Girls in Their Married Bliss by Edna O’Brien. This is the second book in her Country Girls trilogy – and be sure to read the title with plenty of irony and sarcasm. With the publication of The Country Girls in 1961, O’Brien broke many taboos around the desires of young women and helped create a dialogue on what a good marriage should really be all about.
6. Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. This is a wonderful trip through love that travels through the decades. A testament to love, hardship and the lasting nature of true love.
Movies on marriage
1. The Runaway Bride. Maybe running away is sometimes in the back of a bride’s mind. Whether it’s because she doesn’t want to be the centre of attention, doesn’t want to get up in front of her collective aunts, uncles and cousins twice removed or whether the idea of commitment is overwhelming, this one will help her work through those nerves.
2. The Sound of Music. If ever a wedding scene could bring you to tears, this one’s it. Big and traditional, with a full choir of nuns at the abbey – and a woman willing to take on six stepchildren to boot.
3. Four Weddings and a Funeral. This movie, more than any other, likely inspired some people to call off their current wedding to answer the call of a truer love. Aside from Andie McDowell’s achingly bad acting at the end, this is a funny, smart and engaging movie.
4. Father of the Bride. If you’re looking for a good laugh, funny man Steve Martin is happy for you to have it at his expense. If you want the classic version, watch the original, with Spencer Tracey and Elizabeth Taylor. Both get to the heart of family weddings.
5. The Wedding Singer. Goofy Adam Sandler is the wedding singer looking for love and Drew Barrymore is the hapless waitress. The story’s a bit of a cliché – two good people meet and their world turns upside down. The actors’ charm makes this one a pleasure to watch.
6. My Big Fat Greek Wedding, written by and starring Winnipeg’s Nia Vardalos, chronicles the hilarious problems of a Greek-American woman struggling to get her family to accept the possibility of a non-Greek son-in-law.
