I can’t stand the Steve Martin version - and the real life idiots and their (allegedly) adult children who bankrupt themselves for one single day of their lives.
A more specific point. Spencer Tracy’s character in the 1950s version probably had a wedding that was extremely small and affordable - nay, even cheap. I imagine it was like the wedding at the end of The Best Years of Their Lives (in someone’s house with about 20 people total, and the preacher doubling as the piano player). For a man in Tracy’s shoes - who grew up in the Great Depression, fought in The War, and came home to the post-war economic disruptions, his daughter’s big wedding was an unending series of sticker shocks. As well as the emotional shocks that make the original Father of the Bride a good movie.
But Steve Martin’s character got married in the 1970s. His wedding may not have been like the wedding in The Godfather, but there would have been a rented hall, catering, many guests, tuxedos, big gifts, a thousand things to arrange - none of them free. Yet 1990s Martin is shocked - SHOCKED - that weddings can cost serious coin. I agree that the 1990s daughter and Mom are in the thrall of the wedding industrial complex, and the whole thing became a runaway Saturn V with nuclear warheads, but Steve’s character should have at least recognized that the fuse was lit on a big rocket.
Between the Dad character’s stupidity, and every other character’s stupidity, I could not watch the whole remake of Father of the Bride.
A bit off topic: a friend’s sister is getting married and has decided to have the wedding out of state. It’d be about a twelve hour drive for any family or friends who want to attend. I’m thinking WTF? Honeymoon out of state sure, but the wedding too? Why make it such a hassle for people to come? Neither her nor the groom’s family is anywhere near wealthy and my friend may not be able to go because of her decision. Granted you don’t have to be that well off to drive twelve hours to a function but it’d still be a lot of hassle for most potential attendees. Seriously, I don’t get it.
Likewise, my ex-wife was planning on getting remarried several states away despite the fact that her and the groom’s family are all local. Again, WTF?
“Destination weddings”, which I despise. Is it all about YOU or is it an occasion to celebrate with your friends and family? If it’s the latter, forcing them to spend large amounts of money just to get to the wedding (not to mention accommodations) if you really want them there is rude and over-the-top. If you’re having a destination wedding, I think you should be the one paying for everyone to get to it.
One of my cousins did this. His ostensible reason was that he was marrying a white woman (we’re black) and some members of our family are quite racist (which is true), so he wanted to give an easy out to people he felt obliged to invite but dind’t actually want. I’m not sure I bought it, but it was an excuse to go to Vegas.
I think destination weddings are lovely, as long as you don’t invite anyone that you can’t afford to pay to fly out.
More seriously, in large part they’ve become more common because in a highly mobile society. It’s quite possible for the bride and groom to have four full sets of parents–if both are divorced and remarried–and getting married anywhere where anyone lives is snubbing someone.
I am personally so anti-wedding that not only did we get married in the courthouse in our street clothes, we told no one–not a BFF, not a sibling, not a parent–that we were even talking about getting married until after it was done. We were at the end of college and had no money–we were living check to check–and I couldn’t see asking my parents to help, as they were already supporting me.
In terms of the movie, I never thought the Banks were supposed to be upper-middle class. The house and furnishings were certainly not what I think of as upper-middle class. I thought of them as wealthy, just not stinking rich.
When the movie first came out, one of the people who slammed it hardest was… Miss Manners! She stated categorically that it was preposterous (and NOT at all "traditional) for the bride’s parents to pay ANY guest’s travel expenses (let alone guests from overseas). She also thought it was ludicrous that EVERY attempt Steve Martin made to save a few dollars resulted in disaster.
Actually having arranged events before a “back yard wedding” (or any event) can often end up being substanially MORE expensive than a specialist venue.
Why?
Because you have to hire / bring in EVERYTHING. By the time you rent cover (in case it rains) hire air conditioning units for the tent, bring in full portable soundsystems, extra power (your house won’t have enough juice to run everything), set up on site catering it very quickly gets expensive in comparison to a venue where it is all provided. (yes the venue has to buy the same things BUT, a) it’s amortised over more events
b) labour is cheaper as it’s long term employees
c) its all fixed in place
I think destination weddings are only a good idea if; the couple is eloping (in which case nobody is really expected to attend, or the couple is prohibited from marrying by local law (ie same-sex couples).
Both sets of grandparents eloped. With my mother’s parents it was a geniune elopement. The sequence of events went something like this; they driving on a country road on afternoon, grandpa said he’d never marry a woman who smoked, grandma threw all her cigarettes out the window, she packed a bag when she got home and snuck out that night wearing her Sunday dress, they drove to Maryland, got married at the first justice of the peace they found, her wedding ring was his class ring and her bouquet was a cabbage, she got food poisoning from diner they ate their wedding lunch at, and they both ended up back at her (furious) parent’s house where grandpa had to spend his wedding night on the parlour sofa. He shipped out to the Pacific a week later. My father’s parents we asked to elope by her parents so they wouldn’t have to admit to anyone they couldn’t afford a wedding. Both marriages ended in death, decades later.
I somewhat agree here. It is the same joke/ situation as Green Acres - one sane man who expects the world to work in a logical manner, surrounded by surrealist characters and a world which seems to be actively subverting his knowledge of how reality is supposed to work.
The one really memorable thing in the movie doesn’t show up in the IMDB quotes but I’m sure I am right. When they are culling the huge guest list and Steve Martin has this line:
“He died? That’s great!”
The delivery is just perfect, assuming it’s actually in the movie.
Our friends and family are so spread out that the majority of the people we really wanted there would have had to travel anyway, no matter where we had it. Having it in either of our hometowns would have meant inviting tons of distant relatives and family acquaintances that we don’t especially like (or pissing those same people off and causing a lot of tension). So the destination wedding in New Orleans made sense for us.
Besides, most of the friends at our wedding were people whose weddings we had been in, which meant not only hundreds of dollars in clothing and hotel rooms and bachelor/ette parties but dozens of man-hours of pulling everything together at the last minute. And rarely having a good time, because we were always too exhausted by the time the reception came around to really enjoy it. I think most of our friends got off pretty light by comparison.
I agree that the destination wedding doesn’t make sense for a lot of people, but it did for us.
