On the surface, weddings may be all about bringing together families and friends to celebrate a couple’s love, but for most single attendees these often elaborate parties are equally notable for their open bar and the opportunity to meet a new love interest. It was this single guy’s perspective on attending weddings that initially inspired Wedding Crashers.
“The idea for Wedding Crashers started with an invitation I received for one of my friend’s weddings a few years ago,” says producer Andrew Panay. “I began thinking back to my college days when I crashed a couple of weddings with a buddy of mine because it was an easy way to meet girls. I thought it could be a great backdrop for a film – two guys who crash weddings to meet girls until one of them breaks all the rules and falls for one of the bridesmaids, but has lied about who he is for an entire evening.”
Panay developed the concept with Peter Abrams and Robert L. Levy, his partners at Tapestry Films, before eventually hiring the writing team of Steve Faber & Bob Fisher to bring the story to life.
“We felt within the concept of wedding crashing there was a lot of strong material which could be turned into a really funny story and script,” says producer Peter Abrams. “We were looking for writers and Andrew Panay had met with Steve Faber & Bob Fisher on a script called We’re the Millers which we all thought was incredibly funny, witty and smart. We told them about the basic storyline for Wedding Crashers and they immediately ran with the idea.”
Faber & Fisher instantly clicked with the concept, but quickly realized that they would need to expand the story beyond a tale of just a couple of guys on the make.
“After we were pitched the basis for the film, both Bob and I agreed that we needed to create a world that was funnier than simply a couple of young guys crashing weddings all the time,” says Faber. “We thought, ‘What if they were older and really shouldn’t be doing these types of things?’ Weddings are the ultimate in forced bliss and we came to the creative conclusion that these guys really needed to be experts in the art of wedding crashing, so we devised dozens of rules that they always adhere to.”
Fisher adds, “We also knew we couldn’t sustain an entire film with just wedding crashing, so we thought that it’d be a good idea if one of the guys were to fall for a woman at one of the weddings. We wanted the characters to be caught in a place where their lives could be really affected by the choices they made.”
In the film, John Beckwith and Jeremy Gray are best friends and partners in a Washington, D.C. divorce mediation firm where they use their unique brand of negotiating to help couples realize that the end of their marriage is not to be blamed on each other, but should be blamed on the institution of marriage.
“John is a man who’s really had enough with the lifestyle he is leading and feels that he is not following his own bliss,” says Faber. “He doesn’t realize this, of course, until he meets the woman of his dreams. Jeremy, on the other hand, lives more in the moment, steamrolling from one wedding to the next, one sexual encounter to another, without ever really looking back.”
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