LIFTING THE VEIL
Revealing the secrets of TV’s prime-time weddings
T’S officially wedding season — at least on TV.
May’s impending season finales mean wedding bells are ringing for plenty of fictional characters before the summer hiatus. On “Superstore” last week, Cheyenne (Nichole Bloom) and Bo (Johnny Pemberton) tied the knot. Monday night saw the nuptials of Toby (Eddie Kaye Thomas) and Happy (Jadyn Wong) on “Scorpion.” Sunday features “Once Upon
a Time’s” Captain Hook (Colin O’Donoghue) and Emma Swan (Jennifer Morrison) walking down the aisle in a musical episode. Still other weddings lay ahead for characters of “NCIS” (May 9) and “Life in
Pieces” (May 11). “Being married myself and having gone through a wedding, you realize it’s as tough, if not tougher, in terms of the logistics,” says “Once Upon a Time” executive producer Adam Horowitz. “The look of it has to be designed so precisely for how you’re going to shoot it. Then you have to worry about things like the score, the soundtrack, the dialogue. It was like planning a real wedding.”
These fictional ceremonies tend to be almost a year in the making, with writers plotting out the when and how they will happen from the beginning of a new season. And just as with a real wedding, there’s compromise. “Scorpion” saw scheduling conflicts shift its wedding location about 15 times (it finally ended up, in keeping with the show’s MacGyveresque feel, as a makeshift ceremony in a diner parking lot), while Vancouver’s rainy February weather made an outdoor location impossible for the “Once” nuptials.
And when it comes to the guest list for a televised wedding, producers say it’s best to keep the event small.
“We don’t know who their friends are or their family, so we really didn’t want those characters there because then we’d have to make them into [full] characters and we don’t have time for that,” says “Scorpion” executive producer Nicholas Woot- ton. “The more we could make it an isolated, insular event, the more intimate and the more fun it would feel and we could concentrate on our own people.”
Like a real wedding, what the brides and grooms would wear to walk down the aisle is specifically chosen for their style. Hook got a black velvet suit instead of a regular tux; Morrison was very involved in selecting Emma’s Grace Kelly-inspired gown. On “Scorpion,” the showrunners “wanted Eddie Kaye Thomas to get married in the same tuxedo he wore in ‘American Pie,’ ” says executive producer Nick Santora. “Down to his Converse sneakers, he’s wearing the same exact clothes.” His bride, Happy, wore her signature black combat boots with her dress.
The episodes feature all the other trappings of a wedding: The musical-themed “Once” has dance sequences. “Scorpion” catered a wedding cake (which the crew ate after they wrapped). And for the actors, that moment of “I do” can be a sentimental one. “There was a lot of emotion on the set [that day] … of seeing these characters that have been on a difficult and winding journeyy for many years come together at last and make this commitment t to one another,” Horowitz says.
There is, however, at least one major difference that makes a TV wedding easier to pull off than the real thing: plenty of re-dos.
“A normal wedding lasts for 20-40 minutes and you get one shot at it,” says “Once” executive producer Eddie Kitsis. “We’ve got 14 hours. We got to take our time.”