Basic Trope: A couple decides to marry their way at the last minute.
- Straight:
- Alice and Bob have a big white wedding planned, but elope at the last minute.
- Alice and Bob are planning to elope, but then decide to have a bigger wedding so their families and friends can be part of it.
- Exaggerated:
- Alice and Bob bring the entire wedding with them through a drive-thru chapel in Las Vegas.
- Alice and Bob throw together a $30,000 fancy wedding in a week's time
- Downplayed:
- Alice and Bob have a big white wedding planned, but decide to downsize a couple months before their wedding day.
- Alice and Bob are planning to elope, but then decide to have a party in their back yard for their friends and family.
- Justified:
- Alice and Bob got frustrated with wedding planning for various reasons (finances, contracts, meddlesome relatives), or never wanted a big wedding in the first place
- Alice and Bob decided they didn't want to alienate family members and friends
- One of them has cancer and they aren't sure how things are going to be, so they have a civil ceremony at the courthouse for themselves and have the big fancy dream wedding if and when things get better.
- Alice and Bob wanted to have a destination wedding, but knew a lot of their families and friends wouldn't be able to afford the trip, so they are having a separate reception for that social circle when they return or on their anniversary.
- Alice and Bob had a civil ceremony, but then religion became important to them later, so they decided to renew their vows in a religious setting.
- Alice and Bob went to the courthouse, but are planning to have a big party later (maybe with a vow renewal, maybe not), probably on an anniversary, when they have more money.
- Alice and Bob are Mormons, and they have a civil ceremony, followed by a Temple Sealing
a year later. - Alice and Bob aren't very religious, but their parents are. So they're having a religious ceremony for their families, and a civil ceremony for their friends or just for themselves.
- Bob gets arrested and sent to jail several months or years ahead of the wedding. His fiancée, Alice, posts his bail, and the two of them head to city hall to get married the very next day, in order to invoke Spousal Privilege.
- One of them is in the military, and about to be deployed overseas, so they decide to Altar the Speed so that their other half gets the military spousal benefits (including death benefits, if applicable).
- Inverted:
- Alice and Bob prepare a big fancy white wedding ahead of time.
- Alice and Bob prepare ahead of time to elope.
- Subverted:
- Alice and Bob plan a destination wedding.
- Alice and Bob are living together, but hadn't thought about marriage.
- Alice and Bob want to have a small, simple wedding that won't break the bank.
- Alice and Bob are planning to get married, but end up breaking up and calling off the wedding.
- Double Subverted:
- Not a lot of people show up anyway, and it ends up being a very small and intimate affair.
- But then decide to get married.
- But one that includes family and friends.
- But at the last minute, Alice marries Charles instead of Bob.
- Parodied:
- All decked out in their wedding regalia, Alice and Bob stop at a drive-thru chapel (also a fast-food joint) and get married...as well as order fast food.
- In a Good Angel, Bad Angel situation relating to wedding stress, while Alice debates whether she and Bob should go ahead with the with the Vegas wedding or get their families involved, the Good and Bad angels on Alice's shoulder skip to Las Vegas and get married.
- Zig Zagged: Either Alice or Bob have been through multiple wedding ordeals, either having a lavish ceremony or not having a ceremony, and it has made little difference as they have been divorcing time and time again, leading them to wonder what the point of ceremonies are but also considering having them just for the sake of having them. This conflict occurs continuously.
- Averted:
- Alice and Bob have the wedding they plan.
- Alice and Bob don't get married.
- Enforced: ''We can't just let them get married without drama or something exciting happening because the audience would be bored."
- Lampshaded:
- "We decided it was better to just keep it simple. Wedding-planning is a bitch."
- "We were just going to elope, but we didn't want to leave you guys out."
- Invoked:
- Alice and Bob get tired of being bombarded with ideas and expectations, and/or don't want to spend $20,000+ on a party when they could be putting that money towards something like a first house.
- Alice and Bob start to feel guilty about leaving their families and friends out of their wedding celebration.
- Exploited: Charlie refers to the hassles of getting married to try to convince either Bob or Alice to cancel the wedding. He acts behind the scenes to make the process tedious and difficult.
- Defied:
- Alice and Bob have already signed contracts with vendors and doled out non-refundable deposits, and sent out invitations, so they decide to do things as originally planned.
- Alice and Bob decide they don't want to get involved with wedding-planning, and decide to just go with their original idea of eloping.
- Discussed: "If I ever marry, I'll do it my own way. I don't care what matter what my family may think; they'll no longer be around anyway."
- Conversed: "Why do Alice and Bob care about doing it their own way? A wedding's a wedding."
- Deconstructed:
- The decision causes a rift in the family.
- The decision is so severe that it leads to a divorce.
- Reconstructed:
- Bob convinces Alice's parents that he made her have the wedding his way, against her will.
- Bob and Alice reconcile and decide to try to get married again, not letting a ceremony interfere with their feelings for one another.
- Played For Laughs: The wedding is prank-themed, and features a fake cake that is cut and served to the guests.
- Played For Drama: Alice and Bob suffer Honor-Related Abuse.
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