Our team is pretty excited about the new movie The Big Wedding coming in theaters on April 26th, but our reasons are as different as our team is! Some of us love wedding movies, because we never really had a big wedding, for others it reminds of their big wedding day, and some in our team are still single ladies (and a guy) still waiting for their big day. We thought it would be fun to feature our different weddings – all very different, but all with the same happy ending! Read also more about the Big Wedding movie and how to treat your better half or a friend for movies for free.
Courthouse wedding in Alabama – Katja’s Wedding Story
If you have heard Katja’s wedding story before… you know she didn’t really have a wedding. Katja met her husband Matt in Germany, and they are from the other sides of the world. Katja moved to the US four months later and they got engaged immediately. They lived in Alabama, where Matt was attending the US Army flight school at the time, and neither had any family or friends there. So not the romantic wedding story you’d like to hear!
Katja and Matt got married on a lunch break in a court house on July 2nd, 1998 in Enterprise, Alabama. Their witnesses were Mattās family and his classmates, dressed in army uniforms and green flight suits, reminding of the movie Top Gun – if Maverick had married Charlie, that’s how they would have done it too. The thought made Katja smile on her wedding day – she was a young girl when Top Gun came out and she remembers riding her bicycle home from the movie theater swearing that she’d marry a pilot one day. Some girls dream of the big weddings they see in the movies, Katja just wanted the right pilot to keep her above the clouds the rest of her life.
The lace in Katja’s dress? Not heirloom, she bought it from a fabric boutique in Finland and designed her own dress and her mom sewed it. The beach? Not Hawaii, but a long weekend “honeymoon” in Panama City Beach, Florida – with the new in-laws! The wedding photos? Taken in Austin, Texas later that year, and they wore an evening gown and dress uniform to celebrate Matt’s “wings” from the flight school.
Outdoor Village Wedding in Slovenia – Satuās Wedding Story
When friends and family heard that Satu, our Adventure Travel Editor was planning to get married in Slovenia, they immediately thought that she, a Finn, and her British husband wanted to get married in a āmutual groundā. But no, the main reason was that they wanted to give everyone little taste of the outdoor life they enjoy, whether it was rafting, kayaking, climbing, biking or hiking. And for those that really wanted some city life, shopping in Venice and Ljublana wasnāt far either.
When planning the wedding, Satu and Simon thought that it was going to be a mix of Finnish and British traditions, but little they knew that their local friends and villagers had some additional plans: the local traditions were to be in the mix too! According to the local customs, Satu was to come and get her husband-to-be from his house on the wedding day before the outdoor ceremony, as he owned a property in the village. So after spending a relaxing morning with her bridesmaids in the hair-saloon and hotel where she was to stay for the night, Satu made her way to the village and to their house. But, instead of simply getting her husband and heading for the ceremony, they had to face a series of challenges to make sure they were ready for the marriage. These ranged from putting on a diaper on a baby doll for Satu, to Simon having to tie a fly to demonstrate that he can catch food for the whole family. Best of all Satu had to prove her sportiness by rollerskating up and down the main road running through the village, in her wedding dress! Luckily there were many to catch her when on the way back she couldn’t quite brake with the skisā¦
Looking back, Satu remarks that the day couldnāt have been any better. The weather was amazing, the food which was organised by their local friends who own a fine-dine restaurant was fabulous, and most importantly many of their close friends and family had been able to make the journey to join their special day. āI want to get married again, to the same man and in the same placeā she says.
Last Minute Winter Wedding in Finland – Reeta’s Wedding Story
Reeta and her Spanish husband Bruno had planned to get married for years, but the one time they had booked a date and venue, her cousin had booked the same day, so Reeta cancelled hers. She was determined to get married before they had children, so they sort of did in the end – two months before their first daughter was born! The whole event was planned in nine days, and was a small one. Reeta was working in England and her husband-to-be in Denmark at the time, and they flew in a day before the wedding back to her native country Finland. The required wedding certificate had been lost in the mail, so they weren’t even sure if the whole was going to happen or not until hours before the big event!
The wedding took place in December 2004 in the Greek Orthodox cathedral in Turku, Western Finland, and the wedding couple wore grey (perfectly matching to the weather): Reeta had bought her maternity outfit in Chicago in a recent business trip, and the groom wore almost matching light summer suit from Armani – not quite what she had dreamed of. Her fingers got swollen from the flight and the ring didn’t fit on; and truth be told she only started to wear it last year after getting it re-sized as her fingers never recovered! The happy couple didn’t have time to book a wedding photographer, so the groom’s father took (very few) photos and they honeymoon is still waiting to happen – hopefully in French Polynesia in the near future. This was certainly a very unusual affair and a day to be remembered!
Big Wedding – the movie
With an all-star cast led by Robert DeNiro, Katherine Heigl, Diane Keaton, Amanda Seyfried, Topher Grace, with Susan Sarandon and Robin Williams, THE BIG WEDDING is an uproarious romantic comedy about a charmingly modern family trying to survive a weekend wedding celebration that has the potential to become a full blown family fiasco. In theaters on April 26th. When you buy your tickets now to BUY ONE GET ONE FREE – movies and weddings are always more fun with a plus one! Get two tickets to see the Big Wedding for $12 at The Big Wedding movie official website.
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