The Wedding Diaries follows Bridezilla Kiki Carlow as she plans her wedding to Thom. Here, author Sam Binnie tells us which literary weddings float her boat...
If there’s something every book needs, besides some time travel, alternative history, the end of the world or someone falling over in a comical way, it’s a wedding. And thanks to frankly loads of other authors, you’ve got at least five to choose from. Lucky you. Here are my favourites:
Grimm Brothers
I think I love most Grimm Brothers fairy tale weddings, as they all seem to go, ‘He immediately recognised his true love, and cast away the wicked enchantress. They married the next day, while the wicked enchantress was placed in a barrel full of broken glass, and set above a hot fire before being rolled off a cliff.’ Now that’s a reception.
Dracula
Horrors. Mina writes homes to describe her wedding to Jonathan: ‘Jonathan woke a little after the hour, and all was ready, and he sat up in bed, propped up with pillows. He answered his ‘I will’ firmly and strongly.’ Oh yeah, and P.S. don’t give us any garlic as a wedding present, as we’re both a bit vampire-y at the mo.
Gone with the Wind
So many weddings to choose from here, since Scarlett marries
no less than three times (Charles, Frank, and Rhett - oh, Rhett…), but I love
the nightmarish combination of Scarlett’s first wedding just a day before she
sees the love of her life, Ashley, marry her brand-new sister-in-law Melanie.
The writing really c
aptures the frantic, dreamlike nature of these hurried
weddings as all the men ready themselves for war.
Madame Bovary
Emma is so obsessed with the perfection of this day that she’s left no space in her mind to grasp what she’s actually doing. In her insistence on the day being perfect, Emma sets herself up for terrible, fatal disappointment in somehow believing that’s what the rest of her life will be. And that’s what you’re letting yourself in for when you insist on stupid table plans that separate loved ones because it matches your theme.
Little Women
A beautiful wedding. Meg is marrying lovely John, but insists on a completely opposite day to Emma Bovary: ‘I don’t want a fashionable wedding, but only those about me whom I love, and to them I wish to look and be my familiar self.’ No fake tan and thousand pound heels for our Meg, oh no – she makes her own dress and insists on John’s favourite flowers in her hair. A reminder of how the best weddings are always the most loving, and welcoming.
