"We are gathered here today to mourn a great loss. Peggy, Edgar. Your single life is dead. [Crowd chuckles and applauds] But your life of wedded bliss is just beginning."
Emily: I know that in a million years, you would never let me plan your wedding. I gave up on that dream a long time ago. Yours was going to be a Russian winter theme. The Romanovs.
Lorelai: Before the firing squad, I assume?
Emily: Snow white roses, trees with white lights and candles, snow everywhere, you arriving in a silver sleigh with white horses.
Lorelai: Wow.
Lorelai: Before the firing squad, I assume?
Emily: Snow white roses, trees with white lights and candles, snow everywhere, you arriving in a silver sleigh with white horses.
Lorelai: Wow.
"Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to together through this thing called life. Electric word life it means forever an-- wait, that can't be right... it is? Oh yeah, I forgot this was the Prince-themed wedding. That explains why the bridesmaids are dressed like Maya and Nandy. "
Marriage is a sacred institution, filled with high emotions, decorum, tradition and loads of other things that apparently matter to some people. Suit and tie, white dress, cake, bothersome new in-laws, cute little flower girl and little ring-bearing boy with a habit of swallowing small, ring-like objects.
Some people prefer to forgo the old ways in favor of something whimsical. It depends on those that marry, their friends and family, where the wedding will be held, when the wedding will be held, etc. Sometimes the bride will wear something out of the norm. Maybe a British couple goes to America for a wedding where everybody is dressed like cowboys and eat cake made of corn-dodgers and Ranch Style beans, or an Alaskan lesbian couple dresses like aliens and astronauts for a wedding in the Seattle Space Needle. Or maybe a polyamorous group of twenty strips naked and are married off by a clown priest in Pleasant Valley. Wacky, wacky!
Subtrope of Themed Party.
Compare with Cheerful Funeral, a similar traditional ceremony laced with intentional whimsy.
Contrast with Wedding Smashers, where the whimsy and hijinks are unintentional and usually grinds everything to a halt.
Examples
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Fan Works
- In an Empath: The Luckiest Smurf mini-story "Duncan's Wedding", Brave Scot Duncan McSmurf and his bride Brenda McSmurfette got a Scottish clan themed wedding, with the male Smurfs all dressed in kilts and bearing swords, with the marriage vows being more of treaty being confessed between two parties seeking an alliance with each other in war.
Film — Live-Action
- Discussed in 27 Dresses. As Jane showcases her many bridesmaid dresses to Kevin, one of them comes with a parasol. Jane explains that it was for a themed wedding.
Live-Action TV
- In the Lucifer (2016) episode "Monster", the Mystery of the Week occurs at a zombie-themed wedding. The bride, groom and guests are all dressed as zombies, the rings are on fake fingers on a bloodied-white pillow, the ceremony is held at a graveyard and the episode is set on Halloween. Because of this, the guests are undeterred when the groom is shot by the episode's killer despite the bride's protests before she is shot dead herself.
- CSI:
- One episode has an Alice in Wonderland-themed wedding get crashed by robbers who shot and killed the groom. Accidentally, as it turns out. The robbers' guns were loaded with blanks but the killer put the barrel to a button on the groom's hat and the blast propelled it into his skull.
- One episode involves the Victim of the Week being found buried in the desert at the very edge of the perimeter of Area 51 and being mistaken for an alien at first because of his clothes and unusual bone structure (from a congenital disease) before the investigators figured out that he was one of the masters of ceremonies of an alien-styled marriage chapel. His friend (who had buried the man after killing him accidentally, because he knew that was the man's last wishes) was the master of ceremonies of a rival Elvis-styled chapel.
- The cast of Tanked once constructed a slot-machine aquarium for a couple's gambling themed wedding note in Las Vegas.
- On Friends, when Monica contemplates marrying her millionaire boyfriend Pete, Rachel has a suggestion... money-themed wedding.
Mon, you definitely have to make it a theme wedding, and the theme could be, "Look how much money we've got!" You know, I mean you could put... you could put money in the invitations! You could have, like, little money place settings. And, uh, you could start with a money salad! I mean it'd be dry, but people will like it.
- An episode of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air had Will and Lisa eloping in Vegas to a chapel that specializes in theme weddings. They've chosen a Shaft-themed wedding with the real Issac Hayes as a pastor. When the couple decides to break it off, Will dismissed Hayes as an impersonator.
- The Good Place: The higher-ups of the Celestial Bureaucracy seem to have a distaste for themed weddings. A couple gets negative points for having a themed wedding, and even more if it's The Lord of the Rings-themed.
Accountant: They're basically doomed.
- World's Dumbest...:
- There is a sci-fi cosplay wedding. It gets crashed by Jeremy Bullock, who originally played Boba Fett.
- One wedding has everyone dressed in camo (including the bride) and the minister is wearing a deer costume.
Minister: Deer-ly beloved...
- Gilmore Girls:
- Discussed when Emily mentions her imaginary plans for her daughter Lorelai's wedding because she knows Lorelai won't ever let her plan her wedding. It was going to be a Russian royal winter theme, with snow-white roses, trees decorated with white lights and candles, with snow everywhere. Lorelai would arrive in a silver sleigh pulled by white horses. Given how much Lorelai loves winter and first snow, Emily absolutely nailed it.
- Liz and TJ's Wedding is renaissance-themed because they travel together selling Liz's jewellery at Renaissance Fair. Men wear vaguely old-timey clothes and tights, women have dresses and flower crowns. Though some choose to have normal formal wear. The music is fitting the period, too. People of Stars Hollow find it surprisingly sweet.
- Superstore: Episode "Sandra's Wedding" presents Sandra and Jerry's wedding. They're both from Hawaii and opt for a nautical theme. However, their venue is called Cowboy Charlie's Old West Steakhouse so the decor is a mix of western and nautical. Sayid wears a western costume, though majority of guests wear formal clothes, women sporting mostly blue tones. Sayid is convinced others will look stupid once bride and groom show up in their western garb.
Theatre
- In Of Thee I Sing, the first act ends with the Supreme Court presiding over a ceremony which combines the inauguration of John P. Wintergreen as President with his marriage to Mary Turner, merging the traditional vows for both occasions.
Visual Novels
- Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Spirit of Justice: The defendant of "Turnabout Time Traveler", Ellen Wyatt, is set to have a wedding themed around aviation since she is to marry the heir to an aviation company. The wedding is to take place inside a blimp called the "Flying Chapel", and a blimp-shaped clock called the "Time Keeper" is to be activated as part of the wedding ceremony.
Webcomics
- In The Rock Cocks, Coral and Clover reveal that they got married at Melody Faire's clothing-optional resort to have their own clothing-optional wedding. They enjoyed their stay so much that they decided to stay indefinitely as employees.
- In xkcd strip "Gold
", as Cueball muses on how it makes sense that wedding rings are made of gold because gold is produced by neutron stars merging together, Megan chimes in with an idea for a "binary neutron star merger" wedding theme. Cueball then throws an idea for relativistically ejected bouquets which guests must not catch (as a bouquet travelling at such speeds would basically be a Weapon of Mass Destruction). According to the Alt Text, such a wedding would also have a spectroscopist instead of a photographer.
Western Animation
- Arthur: In "D.W. Unties the Knot", D.W. is inspired to have a unicorn-themed wedding party for herself after seeing a reality show about fancy wedding parties. The twist here is that D.W. is only four years old and didn't realize that a wedding is about actually marrying somebody and not just having a fancy party.
- Miraculous Ladybug: In "Jubilation", the Villain of the Week traps Ladybug and Cat Noir in a dream where they get married to each other and have a superhero-themed wedding.
