Looking for laughs and love? This list has 13 funny and heartwarming movies all about weddings! You’ll get to see couples plan their big day, get into some cool situations, and fall even more in love. There’s something for everyone, whether you want to giggle or have a happy cry. So grab some popcorn, get cozy, and enjoy these wedding rom-coms!
Confession time. First of all, although I keep up with the Oscar nominations every year, my movie nights consist mainly of rom-coms, chick flicks, and high school dramas. Secondly, I am not a cottage-garden person, but getting married is high on my absolute to-do list. What’s more: I can fill days scrolling through pages chock full of wedding dresses and locations. Where do those two guilty pleasures come together magically? Wedding movies.
A genre in itself, this movie style traditionally adheres most closely to rom-com (although there are horror, thriller, and drama exceptions). What distinguishes a wedding movie from an everyday rom-com? The entire wedding movie revolves around the wedding day or the run-up to it. A wedding is an important event in someone’s life, a moment when people from different backgrounds meet – and so that milestone is a rewarding subject for a movie. Well, yes, if you ask me. For the best Hollywood wedding movies, read on.
13 Hilarious & Heartfelt Wedding Movies
1. My Best Friend’s Wedding
Best friends Jules (Julia Roberts) and Michael (Dermot Mulroney) make a pact to marry if they still haven’t found a partner at the age of 28. Just before Jules can celebrate 28 Springs, her BFF tells her that he is getting married to student Kimberly (Cameron Diaz). Green with jealousy, Jules heads to Chicago to do everything he can to break up the engaged couple. Not a lesson about contemporary feminism, but extremely entertaining.
2. 27 Dresses
“Always the bridesmaid, never the bride” is the motto of a hopeless people pleaser and romantic Jane (Katherine Heigl). When Jane’s little sister Tess comes to visit her, she falls in love with Jane’s boss, George, whom Jane herself has had romantic feelings for for years. To make matters worse, Jane gets the job of planning the wedding between her sister and her ex-crush George. All while the cynical author, Kevin (James Marsden), slowly but surely falls for Jane.
3. Four Weddings and a Funeral
Charles (Hugh Grant) and his friends are also looking for love in vain. Throughout the movie, the friends attend four weddings and one funeral, but at the first wedding, the bumbling Charles meets the American Carrie (Andie MacDowell). It is love at first sight for Charles, but it remains just one romantic night. During the next three weddings, the two meet each other again and again, but there is always something (or someone – such as Charles’ ex-girlfriends) that comes between them.
4. Mamma Mia!
A Greek island, Abba classics, Meryl Streep, Amanda Seyfried, Pierce Brosnan, and Colin Firth star in this iconic musical movie. What’s not to like, right? Would you rather know the plot first? When Sophie (Seyfried), daughter of hotel owner Donna (Streep), gets married, she also wants to invite her father. One problem: Sophie doesn’t know who her father is. After investigating, she discovers that her mother slept with three different men around the time she became pregnant with Sophie. And so Sophie decides to invite all three men to their Greek island wedding… A modern classic!
5. My Big Fat Greek Wedding
Even more Greek wedding vibes, but a little more bombastic. After the Greek Toula (Nia Vardalos) falls in love with the non-Greek Ian (John Corbett), Toula’s very Greek family has a hard time welcoming Ian with open arms. While planning their wedding, Toula learns to accept her own cultural identity as her family increasingly opens up to Ian. Don’t be misled by this plot description: this movie is overflowing with comedic events and over-the-top events.
6. Runaway Bride
New Yorker Ike (Richard Gere) writes a column about a woman in Maryland who has already left several grooms at the altar. The bride-to-be Maggie (Julia Roberts) is said to have fled from the wedding ceremony without warning each time. When Ike is fired because his publisher fears an indictment from Maggie, the columnist makes it his mission to fact-check the Runaway Bride story. Ike meets Maggie’s family, friends, and new fiancé and tries to unearth the juiciest stories about Maggie and her three former fiancés – against Maggie’s wishes of course. Meanwhile, the attraction between Ike and Maggie slowly but surely grows.
7. The Wedding Planner
Mary Fiore (Jennifer Lopez) is an ambitious and successful wedding planner. She works hard, is extremely organized, and lives for her work. Until she breaks her own rule: she falls in love with one of the grooms for whom she is planning a wedding. Her uncomplicated life is turned upside down and Mary has to choose: will she let his wedding go ahead or will she finally become the bride herself?
8. Made of Honor
Tom (Patrick Dempsey) and Hannah have been best friends for ten years. Tom is a serial dater, and Hannah is looking for romance and a serious relationship. When Hannah returns from a trip to Scotland with her new fiancé, Tom realizes that his feelings for his best friend are more than friendship. Things get interesting when Hannah asks Tom as her maid of honor.
9. Sex and the City: The Movie
This movie is not necessarily about a wedding, but about what if the wedding does not take place. Carrie Bradshaw (Sarah Jessica Parker), the main character of the 90’s and 2000’s hit series Sex And The City, can finally tie the knot with her Mr. Big. When Big doesn’t show up, Carrie must get her life back on track – with the help of her best friends Samantha, Miranda, and Charlotte, of course.
10. The Wedding Date
In order not to end up at the singles table at her little one’s (half-sister’s) wedding, Kat (Debra Messing) hires a male escort (Dermot Mulroney) as a plus one. Before and during the wedding, family frustration and secrets come to light as Kat and Nick become closer.
11. Ticket to Paradise
Georgia (Julia Roberts) and David (George Clooney) are Lily’s divorced parents. The two cannot see or smell each other, but when they hear that their daughter is getting married in Bali to a local she has only just met, they decide to put a stop to the wedding together. Hoping that their daughter doesn’t make the same mistake they made back then. But was their marriage such a catastrophe?
12. Monster-in-Law
Parents-in-law who would rather see you go than come: that’s everyone’s nightmare, right? For Charlie (Jennifer Lopez), that nightmare becomes reality when she meets the mother of her future husband Kevin. Viola (Jane Fonda) is a recently retired news anchor and first-class snob who decides to be a mother-in-law from hell in the hope of scaring Charlie away. But Charlie fights back, resulting in a real war.
13. Bride Wars
In Bride Wars there is no war between family members, but between two best friends. Lawyer Liv (Kate Hudson) and teacher Emma (Anne Hathaway) have been best friends since childhood and are proposed to at the same time in their lives. The besties are both planning a wedding at the Plaza Hotel – on different days. But due to a mistake in the wedding planner’s agenda, Liv and Emma end up in a battle for their perfect wedding.
