There really aren't too many sitcoms that haven't featured at least one wedding. Whether it's the main characters getting hitched or the crew attending a wedding of some supporting characters, there's always some special day to celebrate. From wedding gowns and wedding parties to fun venues and emergencies, every sitcom also has a pretty similar take.
While every fan has their favorite sitcom wedding or their favorite bridal dress, there are some tropes and overused storylines that pretty much all sitcoms are guilty of. In fact, there are a few things that nearly every show gets wrong about weddings and things that make no sense about them.
The Expensive Wedding
There are so many sitcoms that discuss finances and wealth, and usually, most of the characters from hit series aren't rolling in cash. However, they still always seem to have an expensive wedding venue and a wedding that they'd never be able to afford.
From Monica and Chandler renting out a huge hall in Friends to Jim and Pam's wild excursions before their wedding in The Office, there's a really good chance that none of these characters could have raised or earned enough money to throw the bash that they did.
An Awkward Bachelor Party
There's always one crazy friend that turns a bachelor party from a fun and safe party to a total chaotic mess. From Barney's hopes and dreams of strippers and parties in How I Met Your Mother to the gang on The Big Bang Theory getting lost in the desert, there's plenty of times things didn't go as planned.
If sitcoms teach fans anything, it's to have a pretty normal final bash before getting hitched. Again, this trope makes for some good entertainment, but often, it really just makes little sense and it as random and crazy as it gets.
Cold Feet
If sitcoms teach anything, it's that it's actually pretty common to get cold feet at your wedding. But it also makes for some wild drama on the small screen that all fans can both talk about and get nervous about.
Stella fleeing on Ted in How I Met Your Mother is only one example of this trope in a sitcom, but fans will also remember Rachel running away from Barry on Friends of the team also having to hunt down Barney before he marries Robin in How I Met Your Mother. This trope is an exciting but overused one.
An Accidental Proposal
There's probably nothing more cringe-worthy in a TV sitcom than an accidental proposal, and some drag it out so that the character knows nothing about the falsity until a really awkward period of time has passed. This is frustrating and pretty outrageous.
There was no worse storyline than Rachel thinking Joey proposed to her after giving birth on Friends and then beginning an awkward relationship, or when Jess was convinced Sam was going to propose to her on New Girl. It's an annoying game of cat-and-mouse that's totally outlandish.
An Ordained Friend
A wedding on a show just wouldn't be as interesting if there was a random person to marry them, after all. So, sitcoms have gotten creative, and almost always feature one of the other main characters being ordained and standing with the couple to marry them at the altar.
From Joey in Friends and the gang in The Big Bang Theory to Moira in Schitt's Creek, there are so many examples where this proves to be true. This one, however, isn't terrible, but it isn't exactly common in real-life weddings.
The Lost Item
Fans could probably think of many examples where the best man or the maid of honor disastrously and stressfully loses the wedding ring, veil or dress only moments before the wedding is about to begin. For some reason, sitcom characters are always losing important things.
For example, Rosa and Terry rush to get Amy's veil when Jake and Amy are about to get hitched on Brooklyn Nine-Nine and Joey finds out that the duck ate Ross' ring on Friends. It's always a rush to the altar, and it always somehow works out.
A Catastrophic Disaster
Fans will always remember the badger tearing through the vents at Cece's wedding on New Girl, Ross saying Rachel's name during his wedding to Emily on Friends, or even Carol trying to kill Sandra's cat on Superstore. According to sitcoms, there's no wedding without a total disaster.
Really, most people would likely say their wedding went pretty smoothly with maybe a few minor hiccups. However, everything is chaotic on sitcoms, and while it may be entertaining, most of it really does make no sense and is totally outrageous.
A Pregnancy Announcement
Whether it's the bride or some other character, sitcoms like to use weddings to announce that someone is expecting a baby. Lily on How I Met Your Mother is revealed to be pregnant at Barney and Robin's wedding, just like Rachel is at Monica and Chandler's on Friends.
Or sometimes it's that the bride is already public about their pregnancy Like Pam on The Office or Haley on Modern Family, sitcoms like to use a wedding to tie together a romantic story with a baby on the way. This is one consistent theme that really seems like a strange one to keep appearing.
A Different Wedding Dress
Pretty much every show dedicates an entire episode to the stunning wedding dress. In New Girl, Cece and Jess make a huge deal about the hideous dress Cece buys while drunk, and how Jess has to fix it. However, at the wedding, Cece is dolled up in something completely different and wears a more traditional Indian wedding dress.
Similarly, Monica, Phoebe, and Rachel tackle a woman in a store to get Monica's dream dress on Friends, but fans are pretty sure that the dress she ends up wearing is a bit different than the one shown earlier on. This inconsistency seems to always appear.
An Improvised Venue
When it comes to chaos, there's always one wedding on a sitcom that doesn't go as planned - especially when it comes to the wedding. Patrick and David have to get married at the town hall on Schitt's Creek, Phoebe and Mike have a romantic wedding and get married outside Central Perk in Friends, and Amy and Jake have a police-car lit wedding in Brooklyn Nine-Nine.
After so much planning, somehow, so many sitcom weddings end up with an improvised venue that's not nearly as pretty as the original, but makes hearts all full and fuzzy when the simple wedding turns out beautiful. It's wholesome, but it's also pretty unlikely.