The Best Wedding Movies of All Time

Originally published 11 May 2020. Updated October 2026.

We first ranked the best wedding movies of all time in May 2020, when weddings everywhere were on hold and our way of coping was to watch other people’s fictional ones. Six years on, people are still finding the list, so it deserved another viewing. Some films have aged beautifully. Some of our rankings haven’t. Julia Roberts is still overrepresented, as she should be, there are now two more versions of Father of the Bride to argue about, and Jennifer Lopez has kept the genre going almost single-handed. A whole new run of films has also worked out that a destination wedding is an excellent place to make a terrible romantic decision.

We’ve spent the years since planning, photographing and filming real weddings, which has made us less forgiving of fictional timelines and more forgiving of almost everything else. So this time we judged the weddings as much as the films. For every one, the question was simple: would we plan it, would we photograph it, would we politely decline, or would we quietly leave before the speeches? Some of these are great films. Some contain great weddings. Occasionally they’re the same thing.

The 25 Best Wedding Movies of All Time, Ranked

#1 Bridesmaids (2011)

Still number one. Kristen Wiig’s Annie is maid of honour for her oldest friend (Maya Rudolph) while her own life comes apart, and nothing else on this list understands the strange economy around a wedding so well: friendship, money, competition, an engagement party that turns into a speech-off, and a dress fitting straight after a lunch nobody should have eaten. Then Wilson Phillips appear at the reception to sing “Hold On”, and somehow the film earns every bit of its happy ending. Verdict: would plan. Starting with where they have lunch.

#2 Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994)

Hugh Grant at his most apologetic, Andie MacDowell in a series of hats, and Richard Curtis working out the formula he’d use for decades. The structure is both the joke and the point: the same group of friends at occasion after occasion, a little older and a little braver each time. Rowan Atkinson’s nervous young priest, stumbling through his first wedding and blessing “the Holy Goat”, is still the officiant everyone remembers. The funeral, and W. H. Auden’s “Funeral Blues”, is what keeps the film with you. Verdict: would plan all four, and we’d rehearse Father Gerald.

#3 My Big Fat Greek Wedding (2002)

Nia Vardalos wrote it from her own family, and you can tell. Toula falls for Ian, a gentle vegetarian schoolteacher, and her enormous Greek family responds with lamb, Windex and cousins. Most of the intercultural couples we work with will recognise the moment two families realise they define “a small wedding” very differently. Two sequels followed, the third set in Greece. Verdict: would photograph, gladly, with a wide lens.

#4 The Wedding Singer (1998)

Adam Sandler’s Robbie sings at other people’s weddings in 1985 New Jersey until his fiancée fails to turn up to their own, at which point he becomes the worst wedding singer in the state. Drew Barrymore is the waitress engaged to the wrong man. It’s the gentlest film Sandler has made, the soundtrack is a time capsule, and Steve Buscemi’s drunken toast is a public service announcement for anyone writing a speech. The song on the plane still works. Verdict: would plan. With a backup singer on call.

#5 Monsoon Wedding (2001)

Mira Nair’s film follows a Punjabi family in Delhi through the crowded days before an arranged marriage, with relatives flying in from around the world and the monsoon arriving whenever it likes. It’s funny, and it doesn’t flinch: there’s a family secret at its centre that the film handles with real care. Its sweetest love story belongs to the wedding planner, P.K. Dubey, who falls for the family’s maid and eats the marigolds. It won the Golden Lion at Venice. Verdict: would photograph, and we’d keep an eye on the planner.

#6 Muriel’s Wedding (1994)

We’re Australian, so this one is personal. Toni Collette’s Muriel has spent her life in Porpoise Spit wanting a white wedding, mostly to ABBA, and the film gives her one in the bleakest way possible: a marriage of convenience to a South African swimmer who needs citizenship to compete. It’s kitsch and sharp, and much sadder and wiser than it first looks. The real love story is between Muriel and her friend Rhonda. Verdict: would plan, for the ABBA and for Rhonda.

#7 The Philadelphia Story (1940)

Katharine Hepburn plays Tracy Lord, a Main Line socialite about to marry the wrong man, with her ex-husband (Cary Grant) and a tabloid reporter (James Stewart) circling the house the night before. It’s quick, glamorous and much sharper about pride and forgiveness than its gowns suggest. A personal note: Tracey’s father swears she was named after Hepburn’s Tracy Lord. Her mother says it was Grace Kelly’s, in High Society, the 1956 musical remake. She’ll take both. Verdict: would plan. We’ve seated exes before.

#8 Crazy Rich Asians (2018)

Rachel, an economics professor from New York, flies to Singapore for a friend’s wedding and discovers her boyfriend’s family is very rich and not remotely impressed. The wedding halfway through is the set piece: a church turned into a garden, an aisle turned into a stream, and the bride walking through the water while “Can’t Help Falling in Love” plays. We live and work in Asia, so we laughed in recognition more often than we’d like to admit. Verdict: would photograph, in waterproof shoes.

#9 Steel Magnolias (1989)

Six women in a Louisiana beauty salon, one wedding, and a groom’s cake nobody forgets: a red velvet armadillo. Julia Roberts’ Shelby marries in “blush and bashful”, her two shades of pink, and the film goes somewhere much harder after that. Dolly Parton runs the salon. Tracey has been devoted to Dolly for as long as anyone can remember, which may explain the ranking. Bring tissues. Verdict: would plan. The armadillo would need a conversation.

#10 Rachel Getting Married (2008)

Jonathan Demme shot it handheld, like a wedding film made by a friend of the family who can’t stop rolling, and it’s the closest any feature has come to how a real wedding feels from the inside. Anne Hathaway is Kym, out of rehab for her sister’s wedding in Connecticut and unable to stop making it about herself, including a rehearsal dinner toast that could empty a room. The wedding itself, full of musicians and friends, is warm and long in the best way. It’s the most documentary film on this list, which may be why we love it. Verdict: would photograph, from well away from the microphone.

#11 Father of the Bride (1991)

Steve Martin’s George Banks takes his daughter’s engagement as a personal attack, then a financial one, and spends the film losing gracefully to both. Martin Short steals it as Franck, the wedding coordinator with an accent nobody can place, and the supermarket scene over hot dog buns is every father who has ever looked at a wedding budget. It’s a remake of the 1950 Spencer Tracy and Elizabeth Taylor film. The 2022 version, with Andy García and Gloria Estefan, moves it to a Cuban-American family in Miami and makes the parents’ own marriage the story. Verdict: would plan, and Dee would like a quiet word with Franck.

#12 Palm Springs (2020)

The smartest wedding film of the last decade is a time-loop comedy. Andy Samberg’s Nyles is a plus-one who has lived the same desert wedding day so many times he’s stopped counting, and Cristin Milioti’s Sarah, the bride’s sister, follows him into the loop. It’s funny about the parts of a wedding everyone recognises, the toast, the dance floor, the morning after, and quietly serious about choosing a person when nothing else changes. It’s the opposite of ichi-go ichi-e, the tea ceremony idea that every meeting happens once, and the film slowly works out that a day you can repeat forever stops meaning anything. Verdict: would plan. Only once.

#13 Late Spring (1949)

Our one Japanese entry, and the quietest film here. In Yasujirō Ozu’s film, Noriko (Setsuko Hara) lives happily with her widowed father in Kamakura and has no wish to marry, so he lets her believe he’s remarrying to set her free. We never see the groom. We never see the wedding. What we see is Noriko at home in her bridal kimono, bowing to thank her father before they leave, and then him coming home alone to peel an apple. Anyone who has photographed a Japanese wedding morning knows exactly where that feeling sits. Verdict: would photograph. The morning, mostly.

#14 My Best Friend’s Wedding (1997)

Julia Roberts plays Julianne, a food critic who learns her best friend is getting married in four days and decides to stop it. The clever part is that the film knows she’s wrong: Cameron Diaz’s Kimmy is kind and sincere, and Julianne is the problem. Rupert Everett walks off with every scene he’s in, and the whole restaurant singing “I Say a Little Prayer” is the moment everyone remembers. Roberts was back two years later in Runaway Bride, which is fun and no better than it needs to be. Verdict: would leave before the speeches. Julianne has a plan.

#15 The Wedding Banquet (1993)

Ang Lee’s second film, and still one of his warmest. Wai-Tung, a Taiwanese man living happily in Manhattan with his partner Simon, agrees to marry Wei-Wei, an artist who needs a green card, mostly to stop his parents asking. Then his parents fly in from Taiwan and insist on a proper banquet, and the lie gets bigger and louder with every course. It’s a comedy about the wedding families need and the one couples want, a conversation we have more often than you’d think. Verdict: would plan, banquet and all.

#16 About Time (2013)

Richard Curtis again, this time with time travel. Domhnall Gleeson’s Tim can go back and redo moments, and his wedding to Rachel McAdams’ Mary in Cornwall is hit by a storm that tears through the marquee. Mary is married in red, the guests run for cover laughing, and the day is better for it. Bill Nighy, as Tim’s father, gives the best man speech. Anyone planning a wedding by the sea should watch it once, and then relax. Verdict: would photograph. We’ve always liked a little weather.

#17 Wedding Crashers (2005)

Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn crash weddings for the free bar and the bridesmaids, working from a rulebook, until one of them falls for the daughter of the Treasury Secretary (Christopher Walken, naturally). Rachel McAdams is warm, Isla Fisher is a menace, and Bradley Cooper’s Sack is an unforgivable boyfriend. The opening montage of weddings, Jewish, Irish, Indian, Chinese and more, is a good argument for a full dance floor. Verdict: would politely decline. We do check the guest list.

#18 Mamma Mia! (2008)

Sophie invites three men to her wedding on a Greek island because one of them is probably her father, and her mother, Meryl Streep’s Donna, has no idea until they’re on the island. The plot is an excuse for ABBA, and nobody minds. It was filmed on Skopelos, and the wedding ends with the bride choosing travel over marriage and her mother getting married instead, which is a better twist than it has any right to be. Verdict: would plan. We’d cope with the change of bride.

#19 Anyone But You (2023)

Sydney Sweeney and Glen Powell play two people who can’t stand each other and pretend to be a couple at a destination wedding in Sydney, where her sister is marrying his best friend’s sister. It’s loosely Much Ado About Nothing, with a harbour, a lot of Natasha Bedingfield and a leading man clearly enjoying himself. Its best wedding detail is the simplest one: two brides, and nobody in the film thinks that’s the story. Verdict: would plan. The helicopter wasn’t our idea.

#20 The Graduate (1967)

Not a wedding film until the last few minutes, and then the most famous wedding interruption ever filmed: Dustin Hoffman’s Benjamin hammering on the church glass, Elaine running out in her veil, and the two of them on the back seat of a bus, smiling, then not quite. That final shot, as the smiles fade, is the whole film. Simon & Garfunkel do the rest. Verdict: would leave before the speeches. So did the bride.

#21 Sex and the City (2008)

After six seasons, Carrie and Big finally decide to marry, and the plan grows from City Hall to the New York Public Library and a Vivienne Westwood gown. Then Big loses his nerve on the day. It’s the most realistic thing in the film: a wedding that got bigger than the two people in it. They marry later at City Hall in something simple, which is the right ending. Verdict: would photograph. The second one.

#22 The Best Man (1999)

Taye Diggs is Harper, a writer whose first novel is about to come out the same weekend he’s best man for his college friend Lance. The trouble is the novel, which everyone reads and which holds one secret Lance should not learn at his own wedding. It’s sharp about old friendships, and the cast (Morris Chestnut, Nia Long, Sanaa Lathan, Terrence Howard) was good enough to come back for a sequel and a series. Verdict: would plan. We’d hide the book.

#23 The Hangover (2009)

Technically a wedding film, in that it ends at one. Three groomsmen wake up in a wrecked Las Vegas suite with a tiger, a baby and no groom, and spend the day reconstructing a night none of them remembers. Tracey first watched it with her whole family and spent most of it checking on her mum. It’s two hours on what not to do before a wedding. Verdict: would politely decline the bachelor party. The wedding looks fine.

#24 27 Dresses (2008)

Katherine Heigl’s Jane has been a bridesmaid 27 times and kept every dress, which tells you everything about her and nothing good about the dresses. Then her younger sister gets engaged to the boss Jane is in love with, and Jane helps plan it. James Marsden is the wedding columnist who sees straight through her. The ending, with all 27 dresses back on the bridesmaids, is the best joke in the film. Verdict: would plan. Jane could finally take the day off.

#25 The Wedding Planner (2001)

Jennifer Lopez’s Mary Fiore is the most sought-after wedding planner in San Francisco, with a headset, a binder and no life, until she falls for the groom of her biggest client. As professional conduct goes, it’s a disaster. As a rom-com with a young Matthew McConaughey, it’s very watchable. Lopez has stayed loyal to the genre ever since, with Marry Me (2022) and a pirate film we’ll come to shortly. Verdict: would not hire. Dee has notes.

10 More Wedding Movies Worth Watching

These aren’t ranked, partly because some are too new to judge fairly and partly because ranking them would mean taking a pirate film seriously. They’re the newer releases, the genre oddities and the films with one wedding scene worth the whole watch.

The Wedding Banquet (2025)

Andrew Ahn’s reimagining of Ang Lee’s film keeps the green-card marriage and the grandmother who flies in to see it done properly, then gives it two couples: Min (Han Gi-chan) and Chris (Bowen Yang), and their friends Angela (Kelly Marie Tran) and Lee (Lily Gladstone), who are trying for a baby. Min will pay for the IVF if Angela marries him. Youn Yuh-jung, as his grandmother, steals every scene. Verdict: would plan, and we’d do as the grandmother says.

The Drama (2026)

The newest film here, and the most uncomfortable. Zendaya and Robert Pattinson’s Emma and Charlie are a week from their wedding when one drunken confession, at the venue of all places, throws everything into doubt. Kristoffer Borgli plays it as a comedy of social agony, and people are still arguing about it. Verdict: would leave before the speeches. Possibly before the wedding.

Ticket to Paradise (2022)

George Clooney and Julia Roberts are divorced parents who fly to Bali to stop their daughter marrying a man she met on holiday, and spend the film bickering, sabotaging and remembering why they married each other. It’s light and pleasant, mostly because the two of them are having fun. As destination wedding films go, it gets one thing right: the place changes the people who come. Verdict: would plan. We’d seat the parents apart.

You’re Cordially Invited (2025)

Reese Witherspoon is planning her sister’s wedding, Will Ferrell is planning his daughter’s, and an island inn off the Georgia coast has booked them both for the same weekend. Neither will move, so they share, badly. It’s broad, and Ferrell is Ferrell, but anyone who has ever had a venue call about “a small issue” will feel it in their stomach. Verdict: would politely decline. We’d have read the contract.

Mother of the Bride (2024)

Brooke Shields flies to Phuket for her daughter’s wedding and discovers the groom’s father is the man who broke her heart in college. He’s Benjamin Bratt, so you can see the problem. It’s Netflix comfort viewing, and the Thai resort does a lot of the work. Verdict: would photograph. For the setting.

Shotgun Wedding (2023)

Jennifer Lopez and Josh Duhamel’s destination wedding in the Philippines is already going badly when pirates take the guests hostage. It’s an action comedy, the cast is game, and Jennifer Coolidge as the groom’s mother helps enormously. Verdict: would politely decline. Seating charts are stressful enough.

The People We Hate at the Wedding (2022)

Two American siblings and their mother fly to England for their half-sister’s wedding, which none of them especially wants to attend, and everyone behaves exactly as badly as the title promises. Kristen Bell, Ben Platt and Allison Janney make it worth the trip. Verdict: would leave before the speeches. Theirs especially.

Ready or Not (2019)

Tracey’s pick, as the horror fan in the studio. Samara Weaving’s Grace marries into a very rich family whose wedding-night tradition is a game, and the game she draws is hide and seek, played to the death. It’s savage and funny, and it ends with a wedding dress beyond saving. Verdict: would politely decline. We’d still want to photograph the dress.

Plus One (2019)

Two old friends, both single, agree to be each other’s plus-one for a whole summer of weddings, and you can guess the rest. Maya Erskine and Jack Quaid make it better than the premise: the dialogue is quick, the speeches are excruciating in the right way, and it understands that a season of other people’s weddings makes you take stock of your own life. Verdict: would photograph. All of them.

The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975)

Not a wedding film, but it opens with one: Ralph and Betty’s, outside a small-town church, after which Brad proposes to Janet and the night goes wrong very quickly. It’s here because Tracey and Dee met in a stage production of Rocky Horror, so this list was never going to be complete without it. At midnight screenings, audiences still throw rice at the opening wedding. Verdict: would plan. Rice supplied, Time Warp rehearsed.

The Part the Films Skip

Almost every film on this list runs on the same engine: too many people, too little structure, one decision made too late and a speech nobody checked. That’s what makes them watchable. It’s also close to the opposite of our job. When we plan a wedding, the aim is that nothing goes wrong in a way anyone notices, which makes for a terrible plot and, as it happens, a very good wedding film. The weather still gets a vote, and somebody’s uncle will always find the microphone. But the couple gets to be inside the day rather than managing it, and that’s the wedding we’d plan.