Is the wedding in Robert Altman’s A Wedding a Roman Catholic service or an Episcopal one? One would assume that the Corellis are Catholic (given that Luigi is an Italian immigrant), but the Sloans could be Catholic or Episcopal. The latter would fit in with the WASP theme. I’m guessing the Brenners are Protestant of some kind, possibly Baptist. I can’t tell from the snippits of the wedding if it was Catholic or high-church Episcopal; which was it. Bishop Martin looks like he’s wearing Catholic vestments, but would a high church Episcopal bishop we bearing similiar robes?
Look at the cross above the alter. If Jesus is there it’s Catholic. If the cross is plain it’s not.
That’s not a fool-proof test. High-church Anglican (Episcopalian) churches will sometimes have a crucifix, rather than a cross, above the altar.
I saw that film when it came out. At the time I assumed it was a Catholic wedding, but that could simply have been because I am Catholic. I don’t remember any specific details. Liturgical details are usually hopelessly wrong/inconsistent in films anyway.
Whatever the denomination, I think the main idea was one of an absurdly “over the top” wedding.
It’s high Episcopal, or at least more Episcopal than Catholic. During the ceremonythe bishop asks “who gives this woman?”
As unenlightened as the Roman Catholic church may have been about the role of women in other areas, it had gotten rid of that particular bit of business decades earlier, on the theological grounds that both the bride and groom give themselves in marriage.
Also, neither the bride’s nor groom’s mother genuflect before taking their seats. You’d think if it were a Catholic wedding, at least one of them would be Catholic and follow that ritual.
There are a couple of continuity errors in the opening scene that make it difficult to peg it with certainty. At one point during the procession, an acolyte is wearing a red cassock (Catholic acolytes always wear black), but it magically changes to black during the actual ceremony. Also, the cross being carried by the crucifer magically changes into a crucifix between the procession and the ceremony.
For that matter, the words don’t exactly follow the ritual in the Episcopal 1928 Book of Common Prayer. It’s my guess they were going for “fancy schmancy” rather than a particular dogma.
Hmmm, good catch about the BCP. The movie came out in 1978, so obviously the 1979 BCP wouldn’t have been available.
I’m watching it again right now and I agree with kunilou about it being a high church Episcopal wedding. I wonder if anybody’s ever made a family tree of all the characters and posted it somewhere online. It’s hard enough figuring out how all the major characters fit in let alone all the minor ones.
Just learned there’s an opera based on the movie!: http://oberlin.edu/artsguide/opera-theater/wedding.shtml
The words don’t follow the Catholic ritual either. However, the altar looks like a pre-Vatican II Catholic altar, one at which the priest would say Mass facing in the same direction as the congregation.
Also, Catholic acolytes always wear black? Not so, in my memory. I was an altarboy, and served at many ordinary Masses, and plenty of funerals and weddings. Altarboys would usually wear red cassocks, but would wear a black cassock for funerals.
The celebrant is wearing a bishop’s mitre. In the Catholic church, *only *a bishop may wear a mitre. suppose that a bishop could be officiating at this ceremony, but it’s more likely that the set and costume people just chose the most ornate headgear they could think of.
Perhaps it’s the custom of the local diocese. When I grew up I never saw an altar boy’s cassock in any color except black. Choir boys would wear red, but not altar boys.
Episcopalians wear mitres, too. At least if you rate high enough.
And by the time of the movie, every church would have had at least a temporary altar to allow the priest to turn around and face the faithful.
But to me, the telling detail is giving the bride away. Roman Catholics in the U.S. just didn’t do it - at least not in any English-language version of the nuptuals.
Like I said, I don’t think there was ever a goal to make the scene an accurate documentation of an actual wedding.
He was an actual bishop. There were several comments about how the Sloan/Corelli family was rich & influential enough have a senior bishop preside over the wedding. The bishop seemed to want to throw it in Nellie’s face that he managed to get threw the entire ceremony without making any mistakes.
I was married in a Catholic church in the Chicago suburbs in 1972. Neither my parents nor my husband’s parents genuflected, and I’ve never seen the parents do that at a wedding although I’ve seen guests do it. My father gave me away with the words, “her mother and I do.” The altar boys wore red cassocks with a white surplice (I think I have the right words for what they wore!). There was nothing special about the wedding; it was like every Catholic wedding I’d been to.
I think the difference is whether the wedding includes a Mass or not.
(Bolding mine)
