Movies to Watch on Your Daughter's Wedding Day

Somewhere between the fittings, the seating chart and the last-minute phone calls, it hits you: the little girl who once fell asleep on your shoulder in the back of the car is getting married. You are happy. You are also, if you are honest, a little undone.

These six films understand that feeling. They are about fathers (and one extraordinary mother) and the daughters they raised, about the strange grief that lives inside the happiest days, and about the realisation that letting go is not the end of anything. Watch one the night before to steady yourself, or save it for the quiet morning after, when the house is empty and the confetti is still in your shoes.

1. Father of the Bride (1991)

Steve Martin plays George Banks, a California sneaker-company owner whose 22-year-old daughter Annie (Kimberly Williams) comes home from Europe engaged to a man George has never met. What follows is a comedy of escalating panic: the cost of the wedding, the in-laws, Martin Short's flamboyant wedding planner Franck. Diane Keaton is the calm centre as George's wife Nina. Directed by Charles Shyer and co-written with Nancy Meyers, it is a remake of the 1950 Spencer Tracy and Elizabeth Taylor film.

Why it fits today: It is the most honest comedy ever made about a father who knows he is being ridiculous and cannot stop. Every overreaction is really one sentence he cannot say out loud: I'm not ready.

Scene to look for: The night George and Annie shoot baskets together in the driveway, under the floodlight, while "My Girl" plays. It is barely a minute long, and it is the whole film.

2. Late Spring (1949)

In post-war Kamakura, Noriko (Setsuko Hara) lives contentedly with her widowed father, Professor Somiya (Chishu Ryu), keeping house for him and in no hurry to marry. Everyone around them believes she should. Yasujiro Ozu tells the story with almost nothing happening on the surface: meals, train rides, a bicycle ride by the sea, a trip to Kyoto. Underneath, two people who love each other are quietly negotiating their separation.

Why it fits today: No film understands better that a parent's love sometimes means pushing a child out of the nest, even when it breaks your own heart to do it. If you are the parent who has been insisting "go, be happy", this is your film.

Scene to look for: The last night of the father-and-daughter trip to Kyoto, at the inn. Noriko tries to tell her father she would rather stay with him, and his gentle reply is one of the great speeches about marriage and time in all of cinema.

3. Paper Moon (1973)

Peter Bogdanovich's black-and-white road movie is set in Depression-era Kansas. Con man Moses Pray (Ryan O'Neal) agrees to deliver a nine-year-old orphan, Addie Loggins, to her aunt in Missouri, and finds she is a better swindler than he is. Addie was played by Ryan O'Neal's real daughter, Tatum, who won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress at ten, still the youngest person ever to win a competitive Oscar.

Why it fits today: It is a reminder that the father-daughter bond is not always soft. Sometimes it is two stubborn people who argue over money in diners and still choose each other, every single day. Watching a real father and daughter spar on screen adds a layer you cannot fake.

Scene to look for: The café scene where Addie, arms folded and absolutely immovable, demands the two hundred dollars she believes Moze owes her. Then watch how differently that same stubbornness reads by the final shot.

4. Mamma Mia! (2008)

On a Greek island, Sophie (Amanda Seyfried) is about to marry, and she has secretly invited three men (Pierce Brosnan, Colin Firth and Stellan Skarsgård) because one of them, according to her mother's old diary, is her father. Her mother Donna (Meryl Streep), who raised her alone and runs a crumbling hotel, has no idea they are coming. Phyllida Lloyd directs, ABBA supplies the songs.

Why it fits today: It is the one pick on this list that is pure joy, and it is literally about the morning of a wedding. Put it on while the bridal party gets ready and let everyone sing.

Scene to look for: "Slipping Through My Fingers." Donna helps Sophie get ready on the wedding day and sings about how fast the years with a daughter go. If you are the mother of the bride, have tissues ready.

5. CODA (2021)

Ruby Rossi (Emilia Jones) is the only hearing member of a Deaf fishing family in Gloucester, Massachusetts, and has been the family's interpreter for as long as she can remember. When a choir teacher discovers she can really sing, she has to choose between the family business that needs her and a future at a music school. Siân Heder wrote and directed this remake of the French film La Famille Bélier; it won the Academy Award for Best Picture, and Troy Kotsur, who plays her father Frank, won Best Supporting Actor, the first Deaf man to win an acting Oscar.

Why it fits today: It is about the moment a daughter's life becomes her own, and about parents learning to support a dream they cannot fully share. Few films are more generous to every member of a family.

Scene to look for: After the school concert, in the bed of the family's pickup truck, Frank asks Ruby to sing just for him, and rests his hands on her throat to feel the song. There is no dialogue you need to hear.

6. Aftersun (2022)

Sophie (Frankie Corio), aged eleven, spends a late-1990s package holiday in Turkey with her young, loving, quietly struggling father Calum (Paul Mescal). Twenty years later, the adult Sophie revisits the trip through their camcorder footage and her own fragments of memory. Charlotte Wells's debut feature earned Mescal an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor.

Why it fits today: This is the reflective choice, for later in the evening. It is about how much of a parent's inner life a child never sees, and how a daughter carries her father with her long after she has grown. It will make you want to hold on to every ordinary moment of today.

Scene to look for: The karaoke night at the resort, when Sophie gets up to sing R.E.M.'s "Losing My Religion" and hopes her dad will join her. What happens next says everything about both of them, without a word of explanation.

Before You Go

If you only have time for one, choose Father of the Bride for laughter or Late Spring for a good cry. And if you are reading this on the morning of the wedding: put the phone down, go find your daughter, and tell her the thing you have been rehearsing. The movies will still be here tomorrow.