Again, this is something taken from the original 1950 film starring Spencer Tracy as the father (with Elizabeth Taylor as the daughter; perhaps he should be glad that he only had to pay for her first wedding). So it’s a look at a time when the father of the bride was expected only to give her away at the ceremony and to write the all of the checks. Now that seems dated, but I think at the time, a husband made basically all of the decisions in the household, so that he could call his wife to tell her that he was bringing guests home for dinner and she would be expected to host them without question. Or if he bought his wife a car to drive, he’d pick it out without consulting her. So the daughter’s wedding was one of the few times when the wife was in control.
Excellent point. I’ve never seen either movie through from start to finish, and it’s been a long time, but I do remember sympathizing with the dad.
Incidentally, I read awhile back that future country music star Brad Paisley had just gone through a rough breakup with his girlfriend, and decided to go to a movie to take his mind off things. He saw the Steve Martin version of Father of the Bride, with Kimberly Williams playing the daughter. Paisley was smitten with Williams, and through Hollywood contacts eventually cast her as his girlfriend in the video for “I’m Gonna Miss Her.” They fell in love, got married, and are now the proud parents of two boys.
Here’s the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WwRrKaq0IyY
I don’t think she’s a selfish brat, a bit spoiled maybe. I think it’s that damn Diane Keaton that’s the instigator of it all.
So yes, I’m in the “I think it’s ridiculous to spend so much money on a wedding” camp and tended to side with the father.
Have no idea if they’re going to be chipping in much, if anything. But when Grace Kelly got married to the Prince of Monaco, I believe her father insisted on covering pretty much everything. He was a pretty well-heeled construction magnate, though.
Even in 1991, one of the more unrealistic aspects of this movie was that there was still a shoe company that actually manufactured shoes in America.
They are contributing to the cost of the wedding, but different rules apply to royalty, especially when it’s the wedding of a future monarch.
Back in the early 90s I went to a wedding attended by more than a thousand guests. I have no idea how the bride’s family could afford it. (I was the groom’s cousin.)
The vast majority of guests were on the bride’s side.
+1 for the father being right.
I’ve heard of people putting off weddings for years because they have to save up to do it, which is ridiculous. Just get the license, get married legally, and then take your time having another ceremony whenever and wherever. I’m scared to death of that kind of wasteful consumption, and the idea that even the smallest thing going wrong will ruin EVERYTHING? Seriously, what world is that? It’s la-la stupidland.
p.s. I’m female. My ‘wedding’ is happening in four stages: the first was living together for 3 years, at which point, as far as I am concerned, we were already married. The second part was yesterday, with the children in attendance for the formalities. (It was awfully nice 
) Our honeymoon’s in June <the original elopment plan for the wedding, but as always, children change all plans 
), and sometime in the next year, or whenever we can afford it, we’ll hoof it to my family’s state and have a ceremony for my side of things. I can’t even imagine hingeing everything on one single day going perfectly; life just isn’t LIKE that, and I’d hate for any newlyweds to think it does, rofl. But maybe that’s the point, to learn how to deal with disappointment by setting yourself up for something so huge that you ARE going to argue and compromise.
I still don’t see how anyone at all who does a big wedding gets any sleep that week or does anything but snore on the wedding night.
Don’t forget that *Father of the Bride * was a remake of a 1950’s movie with Spencer Tracey and Elizabeth Taylor. In any case, the money isn’t the point. The point is that the cool, collected, in charge father suddenly saw everything spiraling out of control and was powerless to stop it.
Congratulations!
My father did pay for the entirety of my sister’s first wedding, but all her subsequent weddings she’s had to pay for herself (well I assume the grooms have contributed).
Two weeks before I saw this movie for the first time I helped my best friend have a gorgeous wedding for fifty guests for about $1,000, not including the bridesmaids’ dresses or the honeymoon. It was very DIY but it was a beautiful day.
Watching a wedding said to cost 125 times that in which the father of the bride didn’t even get a chance to eat at the reception or see his daughter off just rubbed me all the wrong way. It was just sad to me that everyone except George lost sight of what was really important about the whole day – family.
+1 on the congratulations!
And **muldoonthief **made me remember that scene in the kitchen, after the future in-laws met, where George learns from his wife that Brian’s (his future son-in-law) parents wanted to chip in some of the money for the wedding. George refused, mentioning that he didn’t want the in-laws to think they were poor.
So, I guess the larger problem is that everyone in the Banks family is too concerned with tradition and appearances. If I had a child who was marrying a person from a wealthy family, I wouldn’t think twice about accepting their help. If people far richer than I want to make my life easier, I’m 100% okay with that.
I couldn’t stand this movie or even the concept of it. IIRC Spencer Tracy’s character in the original was much more actual bonafide middle class than Martin’s factory owning/million-dollar-house owning character, but there wasn’t a single person in the movie I could relate to or like and was surprised by its popularity. Of course I was particularly broke when it came out on VHS so I had some “damn I wish I had your problems” bitterness; it’s kind of like complaining to the minimum wage woman at the grocery store how hard it is to get baked brie stains out of the $1,600 tablecloth.
The Denmark part was the most ridiculous thing. It’s utterly crass and mannerless that the father of the groom would even ask when he’s richer than Martin’s character, they’re his relatives, and most Americans don’t any more give a damn what Danish traditions are than most Danes would give a damn about U.S. wedding traditions. I’d have told him “Guess what, I just converted to pure old school bedouin Islam and it’s our custom that you pay me for my daughter with camels and robes. Of course it’s hard to find camels in L.A. and I’m not even sure of my robe size, but let’s just say that if you could a good camel is worth around $15,000 and my daughter with her education and all should be worth around 15 of those easy and the bathrobes from Armani are around $1,000 and I’ll be needing a couple of good sized stacks of those— so I was planning on paying around $200,000 for the wedding, tell you what, YOU pay for the wedding and cut me a check for $100,000 and we’ll call it square!”
The only laughs were from Martin Short and “Frunk” grew old quick.
And whether I converted to bedouin brand traditional Islam or not, if I shell out more money than I’d pay for a nice house for my daughter’s wedding and she divorces 2 years later… honor killing. “Princess, I don’t care if he doesn’t understand your feelings, I don’t care if he wants different things out of life than you do, I don’t care if he snorted coke off your ass in front of the neighbors and set fire to your hair at his family reunion, Daddy spent nearly a quarter mil on your ‘special day’… MAKE IT WORK”.
A girl from my high school whose family I knew a little bit found herself “in the family way” and quickly planned for herself her dream wedding, with a huge wedding party in ruffly plum and teal dresses, an expensive country club reception. This was in 1990 or so and her solidly middle class (not upper - straight middle) class parents took a second mortgage on their home to pay the $60K that it cost.
She and her husband separated about 2 months after the baby was born and she and the baby moved back in with her parents.
I also haven’t seen the movie in a number of years but remember thinking Diane Keatons’ character was more to blame for the excess.
Also, I think monetary figures are often skewed in movies for impact. If George had been fuming about a $50k wedding it wouldn’t have seemed as outrageous because people really were spending that at that time. Certainly not everyone or everywhere, but that was the budget for more than a few of my college friends’ weddings. That also was the time in my life when I went to the most weddings in the shortest amount of time, and all of them were incredibly similar.
I always thought George was in the right. I didn’t understand how anyone could think otherwise except by the same rules under which, say, the Jules character in My Best Friend’s Wedding not to be a vicious bitch.
Which is not the best example, as MBFW makes no bones about the fact that she is in the wrong, whereas FotB pretends that George is being a jerk.
I believe this scenario was rightfully mentioned in another thread in which the topic was (paraphrasing), “Movies Whose Basic Premise You Disagree with/Makes you angry”.
Included in this list was the shunning of the Ben Stiller character in ‘Meet the Parents’; at various points in the movie we are led to sympathize (to a degree) with all the assholes in the bride’s family, and the bride does but a very token little bit to set her asshole father straight.
WTF re. normal people supposedly thinking this way? Both fairly egregious examples that sucked the enjoyment right out of the movie for me.
Sounds like her parents are as foolish and concerned with appearances as their idiot daughter was.
A pregnant fucking high school-aged daughter wants a fucking $60,000 shotgun wedding, and her fucking stupid parents mortgage their fucking home to accommodate her fucking greedy demands?
Oh Golly…
I was only 13 when this came out and even then, I thought he was right. It’s a crazy huge ordeal that doesn’t deserve it.
While it wouldn’t be a SDMB sort of thing, I’ve “met” parents on another internet board who open up their daughter’s wedding accounts when their little girl is born - saving for college for their daughter, no - she can pay for it herself. Having $60,000 or $100,000 saved by the time she marries for a big wedding? - Doesn’t everyone open up that account?
I can’t remember much about the movie though.