As an upcoming Bride I felt it 100% necessary to watch Bride Wars. I do love both our leading ladies Kate Hudson (who plays Liv) and Anne Hathaway (who plays Emma) and think they did an amazing job on this film. Coming up with a wine and food match for this movie was a bit challenging, the movie has serious, funny and downright nasty bits. For occasions like this I prefer a Riesling. I find Riesling to be one of the most versatile white wines around. For today’s wine we want a steelier, citrusy Riesling vs. a mineral one.
We want the steely backbone to match with Liv and the cheerful uplifting citrus matches with Emma and together they are dynamic much like Liv and Emma. Look for a Wolf Blass Gold label Riesling or a Stoneleigh Vineyards Riesling. For a food item I think that we need a simple white fish dish such as Sautéed Trout, serve with rice and veggies. Fish is a lighter meal and this is a lighter style movie though it has some serious notes through it, our Riesling will represent that tonight. Now back to the battle of the brides!
Liv and Emma are childhood friends and the movie opens at the Plaza Hotel when the girls were young. They were out for lunch with their mothers and witnessed the perfect Bride at the perfect place and fell in love with getting married at the Plaza Hotel in June. As we see the two little girls grow up we learn more about them. We see Liv, our tough, go getter lawyer who is very assured of herself and we see Emma; our push over teacher who makes sure everyone else is ok before herself. These two definitely play off of one another for their strengths and weaknesses, Liv stands up for Emma when at a friends wedding and the Bride accuses Emma of wearing a dress from College.
These two are very focused on weddings, while at a friends they discuss how they would have done things differently if it had been their wedding’s and as always they focus on the Plaza Hotel. Liv finds a Tiffany box in her closet and is ecstatic! Emma thankfully was there to keep Liv from ripping the box wide open. While Emma tries to get Liv to keep a wrap on the fact that she thinks she will get engaged to Nate, Emma’s boyfriend Fletcher pops the question to her over Chinese food, beer and TV.
True to Liv’s take charge character she immediately goes to see Nate and proposes to him in sorts. Much to my enjoyment Nate wasn’t overly hurt or upset and even said that he knew the kind of woman Liv was and he loves her because of it. Lucky for Liv he had the ring box in his pocket and was going to propose that night if she would have just waited for him (much to my chagrin my own fiancé listened to this and laughed over the similarity to our own proposal minus the best friend getting engaged too). Liv and Emma happily run off to see Marion St.Claire the matron saint of Wedding planning. Candice Bergen does a stunning job of playing Marion, authoritative, in charge and no arguments.
Liv and Emma settle that Liv will get married on the 6th of June as her deceased parent’s anniversary was the 6th and Emma will get married a few weeks later. This of course is only 3 months away!! Any bride can accept the fact that this is crazy, most brides take a year or more to plan their wedding so this part blew me away. The biggest piece of information you need to know about this movie is what came next. After buying a dress for Liv, Emma will wear her mother exquisite and well preserved gown they go to see Marion and discover that the worst possible thing has happened.
The bride that had an appointment right after theirs somehow received the later date in June at the Plaza and that leaves both Emma and Liv with the same date!! This can’t possibly be however it is. From here on out the movie gets a bit cold hearted bitch on us. Neither wants to switch location and this leads to the part of the movie where they try to sabotage each other. Liv tells Emma she needs to grow a spine and Emma tells Liv that not everything needs to be perfect. We witness Emma come a bit unglued from her usually calm and quiet demeanor when she sends chocolates to Liv hoping that her Vera Wang dress won’t fit on the day of her wedding.
We watch in horror as Emma comes out of a tanning booth blood orange instead of slightly golden and Liv’s hair comes out blue instead of golden. As these two spiral out of control with hating one another we start to see the loneliness emerge from both of them. These two women have been side by side for over 20 years and now they hate one another. Neither of them knows what to do about this. Nate and Liv come closer to one another and their relationship blooms and Liv starts to feel emotions that she never has before, mostly because Emma felt them for her. We see Emma lash out and my favorite part of the movie is Liv’s bachelorette party where Emma shows up to crash the party and in a dance off totally kicks Liv’s butt and this quite likely is the first time in their relationship that has ever happened. Shy little Emma gets up and busts a move all over that dance floor, it was great.
However……Fletcher is not sure he likes the changes he has seen in Emma during the wedding planning process. He even goes so far as to yell at her over the attitude change he sees and leaves her alone, very alone. Emma starts running with an I-Pod even though at the beginning of the movie she claimed that they couldn’t run with I-Pod’s so when Liv calls out to her Emma can’t hear her. When Emma calls Liv she’s told that Liv has a crisis right now and Emma hangs up knowing that used to be code for “I don’t want to talk to you”, though Liv had just broken down in front of a client and been demoted. Finally the wedding day arrives and we see both brides getting ready with their ridiculous choices of Maid of Honour. Emma’s Dad stops by to tell Liv that her parents would be proud and Liv begs her Mister of Honour to go switch a DVD that is to be playing at Emma’s wedding, he decides not to thinking that he’s saving her from making a big mistake. Little did he know that she was trying to undo the mistake.
As Liv and Emma get ready to make their entrances they see each other and exchange sad looks with one another, not something you associate on a Brides wedding day. Of course we aren’t finished with the bitchy bit of the movie and we see the wild partying Emma up on the big screen and she immediately goes after Liv. I’ve seen a few catfights but this one was great, both in gorgeous gowns and totally going for the others throat. Finally they get pulled apart and Fletcher makes Emma realize that he isn’t the one for her. Emma walks Liv down the aisle instead of her brother and the wedding is amazing. At the end we see Emma dancing with Daniel and Nate cautions Liv that she has to let it happen on its own. A year later Emma and Liv are both happily married (Emma and Daniel were married) and of course in true Emma and Liv fashion they are both expecting babies on the same day!
Overall I think that there is just enough seriousness involved in the movie to keep it from being an over the top puke it up girlie movie and we learn the lessons that we need to, good friends are hard to find, don’t take people for granted and never let your dreams take over your life. Though at times the cattiness is a bit much and I think it’s a school girlish in the end these two make it through and we know they will be friends forever. I did like the movie but if you haven’t been a recent bride or are not a fan of weddings and the craziness that comes with them, skip the movie and just enjoy the Riesling with the fish!
