Is it that time, time for weddings?! You've got months and months of preparation, and yet do you have any idea what you're in for? Moviemakers heart this familiar social rite like no one's business, and the movies could be ceremony-jitter foot-rubs, fair warning shots across your bow, etc., but remember, they're someone else's story, not yours.

The Philadelphia Story (1940) A famous pre-nup crash-and-burn: Katherine Hepburn is the proud, self-righteous bride-to-be wanting to be knocked down from her pedestal ("I don’t want to be worshiped, I just want to be loved."); Cary Grant is the sarcastic ex determined to make her feel guilty and stop the wedding; Jimmy Stewart the class-conscious society reporter thrust into the maelstrom. General wedding planning tizziness abounds. The comedy is high, and this stable of racehorses all run in peak form – even if the thrust seems to be that women should forgive men their boyish faults, whether drinking, adultery, or just the pinching fingers of the slightly creepy Uncle Willie (Roland Young). Though overrated, this may be a good movie to watch upon engagement if only because it stirs up every doubt and second thought you should have before tying the knot.

The Forgotten Man (1941) (on DVD Robert Benchley and the Knights of the Algonquin) The old jokes about the bride’s father, milked dry and ignored and sidelined throughout the protracted wedding-preparation process, began here with this vintage Robert Benchley short. No one did or has ever done befuddled paternalism as well as Benchley.

Father of the Bride (1950) The grandad of all Hollywood wedding comedies, this story begins at the end: an exhausted father in the aftermath of his only daughter’s wedding, sitting among the wreckage of his home, rubbing his aching tootsies. If you’re contemplating a simple home wedding, this movie will give you pause – there’s nothing simple about it and you’ll be left cleaning up after the newlyweds have hopped their plane to Bermuda. Spencer Tracy at his comical best as the ineffectual dad will make you glad if you’re the father of the groom, who seems to get a free ride. Then again, the costs Tracy incurs will seem free by comparison with today’s price tag: $3.75 a head! If only.

Cousin, Cousine (1975) Bubbly French rom-com: two cousins-by-new-marriage, already unhappily wed to sluts, link up and have an affair, which causes problems in subsequent family gatherings. Sexy and light, with Marie-Christine Barrault holding it together with the easiness of her smile and the lilt in her voice.

Moonstruck (1987) Romance and Italianate comedy in a kind of dreamy, magical hunk of brownstone Brooklyn, with Cher’s widowed frump dubiously accepting the proposal of Danny Aiello’s dumb momma’s boy and then falling for his troubled, one-handed brother (Nicolas Cage). Luckily, the margins of the movie are filled to the brim with witty character actors, slabs of comedic nonsense, behavioral detail, and a sense of warm-heartedness toward the follies of humankind. Here, John Patrick Shanley captured a cartoon-paisan flavor, and though it dates, it’s a far better submersion in Mediterranean-emigre boisterousness than My Big Fat Greek Wedding.

True Love (1989) Nuptial planning, Bronx Italian style, including tacky bridesmaid gowns (rainbow), tawdry wedding halls that serve mashed potatoes dyed to match the color of the gowns, opinionated friends, interfering relatives, and a bride and groom who are swept along with the idea of marriage as something you ought to do and so convince themselves that they want to do it. Ron Eldard’s groom is hopelessly immature and unromantic but Annabella Sciorra ignores the fact that her marriage is doomed before it starts; she can’t help it, she’s too busy wiping fingerprints off her back. This is probably a lot funnier if you’ve witnessed this Noo Yawk behavior up close; otherwise, it may all just seem completely crazy.

Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994) A band of single friends, led by the shyly charming Hugh Grant, chase each other around England, attending weddings in various states of disarray and embarrassment. Star-crossed amour and funny wedding mishaps abound but this international smash sucked in its audience and an Oscar nomination with the grace of its execution – a brilliantly witty screenplay, perfectly staged and acted, and a pervasive fondness for even the bit characters and background extras.

Walking and Talking (1996) Nicole Holofcener’s chick flick depends absolutely and generously on the verve and candor of Catherine Keener and Anne Heche as lifelong buddies negotiating their own mutating friendship as one faces marriage and the other faces loneliness. The film has the easy rhythm of a three-hour girl talk phone call, and all the actors run like linebackers with their unpredictable and witty (but not too witty) characters. Keener is particularly radiant and raw, in a way that justifies the whole movie – a dozen things can happen on her face at once. Watching her come up with something to say in an embarrassing situation is like watching a Japanese table-tennis pro play himself.

Black Cat, White Cat (1998) Anyone familiar with the films of Sarajevo-born filmmaker Emir Kusturica knows what they’re in for with this unrestrained absurdism, about a Rom enclave on the banks of the Danube, a festering nest of stray animals, sniping neighbors, grifters, crooks, and layabouts, as it primes for a particularly troublesome wedding. Car-eating pigs, humping dogs, begging gypsies, dwarf brides, gold-toothed paraplegic mobsters, hidden corpses: you’ll never be bored. Kusturica’s stories (and this movie could hardly function with just one) don’t always work, and his humor is often crude, but his films intend on being filthy, hungry parades of life and they succeed. It can get exhausting – picture a 2+-hour-long Serbian Little Caesars commercial – but who’s going to complain about a movie with too much stuff in it?

Meet the Parents (2000) This brutally comic hit found the lurking fears of every young lover meeting their prospective in-laws for the first time, and lit them up good – Ben Stiller is just, well, Ben Stiller, but his fiancee’s father (Robert De Niro) isn’t just a controlling, disapproving patriarch, he’s actually a semi-retired intelligence ramrod, with only his little girl now to serve and protect. Every step is the wrong step, every action is scrutinized mercilessly, Stiller’s anxious gaze of disbelief as each new mishap befalls him is a wonder, and De Niro flexes all of his dead-eyed menace.