“Garrett did an exceptional job with all of the weddings and receptions which looked fantastic on film,” says Andrew Panay. “We knew it was going to be a set decoration intensive show and Garrett was faced with the challenge of creating seven completely diverse weddings and receptions on a very modest budget. He had such great ideas and vision which made it easy to understand why he has been nominated for an Academy Award five times.”
Lewis is quick to share the credit with David Dobkin.
“It really helps me when a director is interested in the details of set design and decoration,” says Lewis. “David’s very visual and had a very specific picture in his head about what he wanted. That decisiveness allowed me to run with it and it shows on screen in the richness and authenticity of the sets.”
The many diverse weddings and receptions were equally challenging for costume designer Denise Wingate.
“With all the montages, bits and pieces throughout the film, we ended up dressing people for 13 different weddings,” says Wingate. “David Dobkin and I sat down and worked out how to make the wardrobe at the various weddings distinctive in order to make it feel like you were in a different place color-wise. The Italian wedding was pink, the Jewish was blue, the Chinese was red, the Hindu was fuchsia and gold and each subsequent wedding or reception had a different color theme.”
Dobkin adds, “I'm a crazy organizational freak when it comes to wardrobe. I like everything to be discussed and understood beforehand so that wardrobe decisions are never made on set. I asked Denise to make story boards with examples of what everyone was going to be wearing at the various weddings and scenes in the film. I know she thought I was crazy, but to her credit she went with it and it helped us tremendously because I don’t ever recall a situation on set where we had an actor’s wardrobe that looked too much like another actor’s or blended into the background because of the colors of the set.”
The biggest challenge for Wingate on the film was coordinating the wardrobe for the Cleary wedding reception which was shot outside during a record-breaking heat wave at the Maryland Eastern Shore. The massive reception would entail coordinating the wardrobe for 16 principal cast members, 500 local men, women and children and a 24-piece orchestra band.
“From a costume designer standpoint when you're looking collectively at your cast members mingling amongst 500 extras on this beautiful, sprawling waterfront lawn and everyone looks perfect, it just makes you feel that all the hard work prior to that moment has paid off. It looked so rich and lush, which is also a credit to our production designer Barry Robison and decorator Garrett Lewis because they provided us with beautiful sets which gelled seamlessly with all the wardrobe,” says Wingate.
The costume designer continues, “The local people that we used in Maryland were by far the best-looking extras I have ever worked with in my 17 years of being a costume designer. We brought a bunch of wardrobe with us from Los Angeles, but it couldn’t hold a candle to what they showed up on set wearing which really made the scene look as rich as it did. You know you're dealing with people who are used to the lifestyle we were portraying when the men can tie their own bowties without looking in the mirror. I can't even tie a bow tie and they did it perfectly and were the gems of the movie for me.”
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