History Film / FourWeddingsAndAFuneral

* BilingualBackfire: Surprisingly averted when Charles and David converse in sign language in front of Carrie, making derogatory remarks about her fiance and complimentary ones about her breasts. One watches the scene expecting that any minute now, Carrie will reveal that she also knows sign language and has understood everything, but this never happens.

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* TooHappyToLive: Gareth and Matthew are (technically) HappilyMarried…so of course [[spoiler: one of them dies]].

** At the end, Tom ends up married to a distant cousin (albeit daughter of his second cousin, whom he'd only met once, 25 years before).

* FourthDateMarriage: Bernard and Lydia hook up at the first wedding. Theirs, the second, takes place only three months later.

* GilliganCut: Paired with SexyDiscretionShot. Charles escorts Carrie back to her hotel after the second wedding. She invites him in for a drink, with them both swearing that that's all that will happen. Cut to a sunrise and the two of them lying in bed.

* ItAlwaysRainsAtFunerals: Played straight.

Charles (Grant) is a charming but gaffe-prone thirtysomething whose friends are getting married one after the other, with him as the most likely candidate to be best man. He has come to find attending weddings unbearably tedious, and he himself remains single (or, as an ex-girlfriend of his puts it, a "serial monogamist"). His circle of closest friends - his brother David (David Bower), his flatmate Scarlett (Charlotte Coleman), siblings Fiona (Creator/KristinScottThomas) and Tom (James Fleet), and partners Matthew (Creator/JohnHannah) and Gareth (Simon Callow) - are likewise all unmarried for various reasons.

* BirthDeathJuxtaposition: [[spoiler: Gareth]] suffers a fatal heart attack at Carrie's wedding.

* WeddingsForEveryone: Everyone, interestingly, ''but'' [[spoiler:Charles and Carrie]].

* SucksAtDancing: That great wedding tradition of energetic but absolutely horrendous dancing at the reception is on full display at Wedding #1. When the happy couple take to the floor for the opening number, Music/EltonJohn's "Crocodile Rock", Laura is decent, but Angus looks like he's never even heard music before. Similarly awful performances are given by Tom and Scarlett, but what all of them lack in rhythm and grace, they make up for in enthusiasm. And then there's Gareth, who is in a class of his own; Matthew drily tells Charles that the first time he saw Gareth on the dance floor, he "feared lives would be lost."

** Played straight [[spoiler:by David at his brother Charles's wedding. David is actually ''deaf'', and Charles must translate for everyone else what he says in sign language. Cue an ArmorPiercingSlap from the spurned bride.]]

''Four Weddings and a Funeral'' is a 1994 British romantic comedy film directed by Creator/MikeNewell, written by Richard Curtis, and starring Creator/HughGrant in his breakthrough role.

* TooHappyToLive: Gareth and Matthew are (technically) HappilyMarried. . .so of course, [[spoiler: one of them dies]]

* LostWeddingRing: At the first wedding, Charles, as the best man, realizes at the last minute that he's forgotten to bring the rings. Of his friends, only Scarlett has some rings she can spare, so Laura, the bride, ends up with a multicoloured plastic heart ring, while Angus, the groom, ends up with a winged skull ring. In "One Red Nose Day and a Wedding", Laura is still wearing her ring.

* LoverAndBeloved: Gareth appears to be 15-20 years Matthew's senior (there's a 13 year age difference between the actors). In a deleted scene, Charles tells Carrie that Gareth was a professor at his, Fiona and Matthew's university, before he was asked to leave for publishing a controversial essay.

* OnlyOneName: Every character in the film, save for Hamish, never has their last name mentioned.

* LoverAndBeloved: Gareth appears to be 15-20 years Matthew's senior (there's a 13 year age difference between the actors).

A one-off special catching up with the characters 25 years later, entitled "One Red Nose Day and a Wedding", aired as part of 2019's UsefulNotes/ComicRelief telethon. An American web miniseries based on the film with the same name was released that year from Creator/{{Hulu}} as well.

* RunningGag: Charles oversleeps and shows up late at every wedding he's invited to. [[spoiler:His friends make ''absolutely sure'' he's on time for his own.]]

* BirthDeathJuxtaposition: Gareth suffers a fatal heart attack at Carrie's wedding.

* ButNotTooGay: Matthew, Gareth's partner, is referred to as his "closest ''friend''" at his funeral, presumably to avoid offending those who didn't know the true nature of their relationship or the church officials who would have shunned them if they did.

* GayBestFriend: Gareth seems to serve this purpose to everyone in Charles' group of friends, especially since he's the oldest and most experienced in life. By the third wedding, he actively encourages everyone to find their future mate, and they all take it heart, finding their spouse by the film's conclusion. Not only that, he and Matthew are the only ones in the group in a happy and stable relationship, the kind of relationship that the others are hoping for--Charles outright refers to them as "a perfect match. If we can't be like them, maybe we should just let it go."

* MeaningfulBackgroundEvent: If you watch carefully, you can see Gareth looking ill for several minutes before he finally collapses.