Warning: Possible spoilers.
“It’s sort of a princess wedding with two brides in big white dresses and pink and white flowers everywhere.” That’s what Stacy McKee, writer of tonight’s “White Wedding” episode of Grey’s Anatomy said about the impending nuptials between Callie (Sara Ramirez) and Arizona (Jessica Capshaw).
Directed by Chandra Wilson – whose Dr. Bailey officiates in the ceremony – the long-awaited episode will provide the pinnacle of the couple’s season-long woes that started with a breakup and has featured an unexpected pregnancy, drawn-out reunion, dramatic car crash and the premature birth of baby Sofia and Callie’s rehabilitation.
“We wanted to infuse a little magic, happy and romance,” McKee told AfterEllen.com during filming of the wedding episode.
After pushing herself through physical therapy so she could hold her baby in last week’s episode, Callie and Arizona’s big day arrives to find both sets of parents coming into town for the ceremony, but not everything goes as planned, according to the episode description.
We meet Arizona’s parents Barbara (Judith Ivey) and Colonel Robbins (Denis Arndt) and Callie’s father Carlos (Hector Elizondo), who originally struggled with his daughter’s sexual orientation, returns with her mother Lucia (Gina Gallego).
“Her father and her mother aren’t here for the wedding itself,” McKee noted. “Her father wants to be and her mother can’t be, and it’s for religious reasons that she can’t be here for Callie. We felt that it was a very true story.”
It’s a story that McKee noted was influenced by events her gay friends have had to contend with and what she notes is a very timely subject.
For Ramirez, the episode is about Callie learning to interpret her faith in a way that best serves her – which may not be in line with everyone in her family.
“Callie looks to her mother in this episode for some sense of encouragement, support, approval, acceptance and ultimately her mother – who has always been a particularly religious Catholic woman who very much knows who she is – is kind of surprised Callie is looking to her for some kind of acceptance,” Ramirez told AfterEllen.
“At the end of the day she says, ‘I can’t be that for you and I don’t want to keep getting pressured to be something for you that I’m not. In fact, I don’t think any of this is real, I don’t really accept this, my God doesn’t believe in this,’ ” Ramirez added. “As a result of that, along with a really beautiful scene between Callie and Bailey, Callie starts to understand and embrace the notion that God is everywhere and that you don’t have to be in a church to share God’s presence of love and acceptance and to have a union with someone and a wedding and a ceremony that means everything to you.”
At the end of the day, Mark (Eric Dane) gives Callie away, the brides say “I do” and walk down a pink aisle after sharing a kiss that took a few takes to capture because of imperfect makeup issues.
Joked Capshaw after a bad take: “No wife would let another wife walk down the aisle with f—ed up lips!”
Take a look at Arizona and Callie being walked down the aisle:
So will you RSVP to Callie and Arizona’s wedding tonight?
