TV

Getting Hitched: Lesbian Weddings in Film and TV

Given the ubiquitous lesbian U-Haul jokes, it’s odd how deep we have to dig to find lesbian weddings depicted on scripted television and in film. In fact, the most prominent lesbian weddings to hit the media have been celebrity weddings: Melissa and Tammy Etheridge’s wedding, which was featured on ABC’s In Style Celebrity Weddings special in 2004, and Ellen DeGeneres and Portia de Rossi’s nuptials just this weekend.

Otherwise, scavenging for same-sex weddings on-screen requires a lot of detective work. Limiting it to lesbian weddings, contemplated or consummated, leaves us with only six – one of them just a bit of backstory on Showtime’s The L Word.

And despite the supposed greater acceptance of hot girl-on-girl action by male audiences, things on film aren’t much better. Sure, there aren’t very many same-sex wedding flicks, but of the five we found, only two were lesbian weddings, and one of them was released just this year.

That isn’t to say that lesbian television weddings haven’t been fairly groundbreaking. Two of them were on a couple of the top-rated, longest-running shows in history, Friends and The Simpsons, and wedding story lines on cable’s Queer as Folk and The L Word went beyond the very special episode approach and examined themes such as the nature of family and the possibility for human change and redemption.

Network Television

It’s not like scripted broadcast television is just loaded with LGBT representation in the first place, let alone positive portrayals of same-sex relationships, with or without a wedding. There are a few mixed-sex green card marriages with one gay spouse – including Jack marrying Rosario on Will & Grace and the Luke/Noah/Ameera story line on As the World Turns – and one mixed-sex political protest wedding from a 1996 episode of Spin City, but not much in the way of caterers, rings and crying mothers of the bride for two guys or two gals.

Still, over the years there have been three lesbian weddings, starting with the historic “One With the Lesbian Wedding” in 1996 on NBC’s long-running and gay-friendly series Friends.

And while there’s no lesbian wedding, it’s worth mentioning that the critically acclaimed series Northern Exposure featured the first same-sex wedding in a television drama, and that the show took place in the fictional town of Cicely, Alaska, which was founded by two Gold Rush-era lesbians.

Friends: “The One with the Lesbian Wedding” (1996)

Television’s first lesbian wedding may not have been the first same-sex wedding in prime time, but it’s probably the best-known. Carol (Jane Sibbett), ex-wife of Friends regular Ross (David Schwimmer), marries Susan (Jessica Hecht) in a ceremony presided over by a minister played by Candace Gingrich, the out lesbian sister of then-Congressman Newt Gingrich, the very poster child for anti-gay Republicanism.

Carol and Susan’s wedding is treated like any other wedding. Ross, who gives Carol away, still loves her and regrets their split, but he’s also the one who calms her pre-wedding nerves and tells her that the only thing that matters is that she and Susan love each other.

The two women may not have gotten as much screen time as the heterosexual members of the cast, but it remains one of the earliest and most sympathetic portrayals of a lesbian relationship on television, and to this day, the only lesbian wedding depicted in all its romantic detail on a network series.

Whether in spite of or due to the intense political battles over same-sex marriage in 1996, there was a gap of five years before the networks tackled a same-sex wedding again (also on NBC, on Will & Grace), and another three before a lesbian wedding got some air time.

Whoopi: “Don’t Hide Love” (2004)

Whoopi came and went on the television scene in just a few months, probably because 2004 wasn’t ready for its bombastic anti-Bush, anti-Iraq war comedy. It starred comedian Whoopi Goldberg as a has-been singer now running an unsuccessful hotel in New York City. Shortly before the show aired its final episode, Whoopi let her lesbian cousin get married at the hotel.

Viewers seem to be experiencing some buyer’s remorse at the show’s failure, and rumors surface from time to time about a DVD release, but for now, the episode is not available anywhere, and it’s unclear whether or not the wedding was actually shown in the episode.

The Simpsons: “There’s Something About Marrying” (2005)

This episode of Fox’s animated series The Simpsons would have made the list even if all it contained was Marge’s sister, Patty, coming out as a lesbian and announcing her plans to marry her girlfriend – even if she did call it off when she found out her bride was a man in disguise.

But that wasn’t all. In typical over-the-top Simpsons style, the town of Springfield fights against having been tagged the “least desirable” place to live in America by turning to the burgeoning same-sex wedding market and trying to capture some queer tourist dollars for themselves. Homer converts the family garage into a same-sex wedding chapel, and starts each ceremony with the phrase, “Queerly beloved …”

Marge has some serious issues with her sister’s lesbianism when Patty finally tells her she’s a lesbian, responding to Marge’s disbelief by saying, “You could see it from space!” (There was also the poster of Miss Hathaway from The Beverly Hillbillies that Patty had as a child.)

In a stirring plea for her sister’s understanding, Patty says, “Marge, if you can find it in your heart to accept me for who I am, I would love to see you at the wedding.” With indomitable spirit, however, she adds, “If not, I’ll see you at Homer’s funeral.”

Marge discovers that Patty’s girlfriend, Veronica, is actually a man who pretended to be a woman in order to join the LPGA tour, but she doesn’t tell Patty. Only when Patty’s vows at the altar – well, in the Simpson’s garage-turned-wedding-chapel, anyway – make her realize that her sister genuinely loves “Veronica” does she speak up.

There are a million things to love about this episode, including the fact that it exists at all, but viewers would have to be seriously in denial to miss the message of acceptance and inclusion, delivered with the trademark Simpsons snark. The Simpsons is also the longest-running television series in history, and it’s significant that producers chose to make a series regular a lesbian instead of having a very special guest appearance by the voice of someone like Rosie O’Donnell.

Cable Television

Cable is surprisingly short on same-sex weddings in scripted television, especially ones that actually end up making it all the way to “I do.” In fact, if it weren’t for Queer as Folk and a single episode of the Canadian series Degrassi: The Next Generation, there wouldn’t even be one, although Shane and Carmen got pretty close in Season 3 of The L Word.

Queer as Folk

Probably known better for putting the “sex” rather than “wedding” into “same-sex,” Queer as Folk actually had quite a few weddings, proposals, planned weddings and wedding rings – and one incredibly romantic wedding night.

Since the show’s male characters started out with a profound aversion to any form of romantic commitment, the series’ first wedding was that of the show’s only lesbian couple, Melanie (Michelle Clunie) and Lindsay (Thea Gill), who marched down the aisle two seasons before any of the commitment-phobic male characters so much as contemplated the deed.

While there’s a certain amount of stereotyping involved in making the only lesbian story lines on the most sexed-out show in TV history revolve mostly around weddings and babies, Melanie and Lindsay’s struggle to define their relationship in contrast to Lindsay’s upper-crust parents and their promiscuous gay male friends is actually pretty nuanced.

In the arc that leads up to their wedding, Lindsay first proposes to Melanie at her sister’s wedding, to the shock and dismay of her uptight WASP family. Melanie turns her down at first, saying that marriage is just a “meaningless heterosexual ritual, and it’s not legal anyway.” Lindsay doesn’t feel that way but decides to play along. After a while, Melanie realizes that there’s something to be said for ritual and drops to one knee after their son’s first birthday party.

A bachelorette party follows, attended by what looks like every lesbian in Pittsburgh -none of whom we ever see again – as well as Melanie’s hot ex, Leda the motorcycle mama (cue foreshadowing of three-way).

Played both for laughter and tears, the lead-up to the wedding includes a painful rejection by Lindsay’s wealthy parents. Asked to help out with the wedding costs like they did for Lindsay’s sister’s three weddings, her mother responds that those weddings were different.

“In what way?” Lindsay asks.

“Those weddings were real,” her mother snaps back.

Her rejection devastates Lindsay. After a fortune teller predicts wedding day doom, the caterer cancels, her wedding gown is destroyed, and the jeweler loses their wedding rings, Lindsay decides that the fates don’t believe in same-sex marriage and calls the ceremony off.

Fortunately, the women’s queer family rallies, and they ultimately march down the aisle after all – butch/femme wedding outfits, lesbian minister, k.d. lang music playing as the rice showers down, tissue-clutching friends and all. And that, in the end, is what not only the wedding story line but the whole series was really about.

In a queer world of unconventional couples, multiple biological and nonbiological parents, adopted kids, informal parenting relationships and countless definitions of family, love – all kinds of love – really does triumph over all. It’s not Lindsay’s parents, who say her wedding “isn’t real,” who comprise her family; it’s the people she has chosen to be in her life who do.

The L Word

The second episode of Season 2, “Lap Dance”, opens with a flashback to the Mendocino wedding of Robin (Anne Ramsay) and Claybourne (Jill Christensen). While not pivotal to the Season 2 story line, the wedding was depicted in all its soapy glory, Claybourne’s up-against-the-wall infidelity with a wedding guest included.

It was in Season 3 that we had The L Word’s most fully explored wedding story line. Series regulars Shane (Kate Moennig) and Carmen (Sarah Shahi) decide to say “I do,” and they plan to head for Canada for a most traditional wedding.

But Carmen’s mother reacts with revulsion to news of her daughter’s engagement and throws Carmen and Shane out of her home. At the same time, Shane makes the difficult decision to meet with her birth father, and ends up inviting him and his wife to the wedding.

The gang takes Carmen shopping for her bridal attire, and all of them talk, surrounded by mountains of tulle and walls of mirrors, about their childhood wedding fantasies.

Everyone’s touchingly happy for the couple and glad to see bad girl Shane settling down, even if they’re also a little bit surprised. “I want to believe, my friends,” Alice says on her radio show before the big day. “‘Cause my friend Shane is getting married this weekend, and I wanna believe for Shane, and I wanna believe for all the rest of us who are flailing around in this abyss, trying to feel what we’re supposed to feel in order to connect in meaningful ways.”

Marriage is what connects us and makes us better people, she says; why do the “defend-the-family crusaders” work so hard to deny it to us? She continues:

Why can’t they just wish us well? Hypocrites. Because we’re goin’ to Canada, people, whether you like it or not, to take our best shot at this connection. And if we fail, it is not because we are less wholesome than you are. Please. I mean, you guys have been failing at this miserably since the beginning of recorded history. And if we succeed, and our love connections actually flourish, and there’s a little less loneliness in the world, then even I might start believing in miracles.

At first, it looks like miracles will be happening. Carmen’s family shows up, thanks to Helena’s largesse, and she reconciles with her mother.

Shane’s friends throw her a bachelor party, where Alice thanks her for past acts of friendship, saying: “Shane, thank you, as a friend, for saving me from going home with that girl that night. You know the one I’m talking about. And, as a friend, taking her home yourself. Thank you.”

After rappers God-des & She show up, courtesy of Carmen, to rap a few pointers on a happy marriage, Shane sneaks up to Carmen’s hotel room and drags her out into the hall for a passionate make-out session.

We get miracle number two when Shane’s father and his wife arrive unexpectedly to attend the wedding, and yet another miracle when we see Carmen’s mother proudly walking her down the aisle.

Unfortunately, just before the ceremony Shane sees her father with another woman, and whatever belief she had in her ability to commit to Carmen dissolves.

“It’s just who I am,” he tells her, and those are the exact words Shane sends, via Alice, to let Carmen know the wedding is off. Carmen is left sobbing at the altar – literally.

The L Word was born into a post-Queer as Folk world, and its lesbians inhabit a different cultural space than the earlier series. The show is both less politically correct and infinitely more diverse, although the theme of the nature of family, and story lines involving babies, get as much play as they did in Queer as Folk.

It’s also intriguing that of all the couples in the show, it was one involving Shane who came closest to making it to the altar. Melanie and Lindsay were already living together and parents when we met them; Shane is a player, and certainly voted least likely to tie the knot by everyone who knew her. Using a fairy-tale wedding as part of a story of awakening and redemption – albeit with an unhappy ending – is a lesbian television first, and only.

Same-Sex Weddings in the Movies

When it comes to the movies, most of those that feature same-sex weddings never make it into widespread distribution. Instead, we see lots and lots of heterosexual weddings where LGBT characters are either essential in bringing the straight couple together, or where the wedding reflects in some way on queer issues such as marriage equality.

But there are a few independent films that center around weddings between two women, the most recent released just this year. It’s unfortunate that there aren’t more, but consider this: It also means we don’t have our own I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry.

A Family Affair (2003)

It’s a shame A Family Affair isn’t better known – or a better film – because it’s nothing more or less than a happily ever after, two women in love, lesbian wedding flick.

It’s the story of Rachel Rosen (Helen Resnick, who also directed and wrote the film), a Jewish freelance writer living in New York City. After being dumped by her longtime lover Reggie (Michele Greene, who as L.A. Law’s bi-curious Abby Perkins was part of network television’s first on-screen lesbian kiss), she flees to her parents’ home in San Diego, where the California lifestyle first repels and then fascinates her.

After a lot of very bad first dates and fix-ups by well-meaning gay male friends, Rachel agrees to meet Christine (Erica Shaffer), a friend of her PFLAG-member mother. Surprised at falling in love with the blond native Californian, Rachel is even more shocked when the two decide to get married. “When I first told my mom I was gay,” she laments to a friend, “I told her one of the advantages was that at least she wouldn’t have to pay for an expensive wedding.”

Old flame Reggie arrives to throw a wrench in the wedding plans, even showing up all in black at the ceremony and hitting on the rabbi. But true love triumphs in the end, and Rachel and Christine (who has converted to Judaism) smash the wine glass and tie the knot in the finest romantic tradition.

“I know no one takes gay marriage seriously,” Rachel says when a friend asks why she is hesitating to marry Christine, “but gay marriage is still like a real commitment.”

And that’s probably what makes A Family Affair work more than it fails, despite the less-than-stellar acting and frequently awkward writing. It has everything, framed throughout the film with that most heterosexual of traditions, the wedding, presented without apology or qualification as belonging to everyone equally, with joy.

Tru Loved (2008)

In this film, a wedding is the catalyst that helps a gay character come out, but unlike other films in which weddings bring up gay-related issues, this wedding isn’t a heterosexual one. It’s the interracial same-sex marriage of the two moms of a teenaged girl named Tru (Najarra Townsend), and the character who comes out is her best friend, Lodell (Matthew Thompson), a closeted, gay African-American high school football player.

Currently playing the film fest circuit, Tru Loved is a feel-good family flick written, directed, and produced by Stewart Wade (Coffee Date). It features a very queer cast and crew, including Bruce Vilanch as the wedding officiant, and everyone’s favorite lesbian actor, Jane Lynch, as a high school teacher. Even the soundtrack is gay, featuring songs by artists including Melissa Etheridge, Rufus Wainwright and Janis Ian.

Tru doesn’t just have two moms; she also has two dads living in San Francisco. She and her mothers recently relocated to Southern California, where Tru starts a gay-straight alliance at her high school. When her fathers go to Canada and get married, it inspires her moms, played by Cynda Williams and Alexandra Paul, to throw a wedding of their own.

Photo credit: Mark Bennington

Almost every character in the film, from the homophobic high school coach to Tru’s closeted gay English teacher (Alec Mapa) shows up at the affair. Their male principal (Tony Brown) even dances with Vilanch.

When football legend Dave Kopay, playing himself, attends the wedding as the guest of Tru’s dads, it helps inspire Lodell to come out to his mother (Jasmine Guy) and grandmother (Nichelle Nichols, Star Trek’s Uhura). Gran takes it in stride, simply questioning in her best Southern drawl, “Doesn’t that school of yours have any nice black boys?” when introduced to Lodell’s white boyfriend.

“This is really a family-friendly film that happens to have LGBTQ characters in it,” Tru Loved publicist Elizabeth Owen told AfterEllen.com. “If it weren’t gay families, the family-friendly folks would be all over it. But because it happens [to] include gay folks, they’re all over it in the worst way.”

Tru Loved premiered at the Sedona Film Festival in February, screened this summer at both Frameline and the Hollywood Black Film Festival, and was the closing film at Outfest.

Gay-Lite Weddings in the Movies

If cinematic portrayals of lesbian weddings are rare, what’s more abundant are “gay-lite” weddings, where the ceremony in question involves a heterosexual couple, but lesbian and gay characters are pivotal to the story line, such as Ang Lee’s 1993 film The Wedding Banquet.

“Gay-lite” films often make strong statements about marriage equality, even if queer couples don’t actually tie the knot themselves. For example, in the A&E movie Wedding Wars (2006), a gay event planner named Shel (John Stamos) is hired to plan his brother’s wedding to the governor’s daughter. The governor comes out against same-sex marriage, Shel goes on strike, every gay person in America joins him, and justice is served in the end. There’s lots of talk about the issues, but no gay wedding.

Out at the Wedding (2007) is a little more convoluted. Set at a straight wedding, it’s the story of a young woman involved in an interracial romance. Worried that her family won’t accept her boyfriend, she brings her white gay male best friend as her date. Through a series of misunderstandings at the wedding, everyone back home gets the idea she’s a lesbian.

But probably the best-known “gay-lite” films with lesbian couples at their heart are April’s Shower (2004) and Imagine Me and You (2005).

April’s Shower (2004)

April (Maria Cina) and Alex (Trish Doolan) were lovers for five years. But April found being a lesbian too hard, especially given her very Catholic family, and got engaged to a nice young man named Paulie (Randall Batinkoff). In a move so inappropriate it’s hard to swallow, she asks Alex to be her maid of honor and throw her bridal shower.

Things go completely nuts from then on, as almost every character has his or her assumptions challenged or thrown out the window, unlikely couples end up together, and yes, of course, the two women find their way back to each other – and the wedding, thankfully, gets called off.

Imagine Me & You (2005)

There’s apparently no better place to meet the woman of your dreams than at her wedding to a man. That’s just where Imagine Me & You’s Luce (Lena Headey) meets Rachel (Piper Perabo), which turns out happily for the lesbian lovers, although not so happily for Rachel’s husband-to-be, Hector (Matthew Goode).

Luce is the florist who provides the flowers for the happy occasion, and she is at the wedding at the invitation of the bride’s sister. Rachel sees her and it’s love at first sight, which under the circumstances isn’t exactly the best news any of the film’s characters has ever had.

Although there’s no gay wedding in this British-made romantic comedy, things end up working out for the best. We get true love, a big, sweet airport kiss for the two women, and a happy ending.

Special thanks to Damon Romine of GLAAD for his assistance with this article.

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