OK, the above question is pretty easy to answer – of course they lie. The main aim is to be unbelievable. Case 1: Three women (three!) fighting for the affections of John Stape in Coronation Street. Case 2: Sam Michell having sported at least two different heads – an abnormality none of the residents of Albert Square have ever commented on. Case 3: Hollyoaks.
The whole point of soaps is that they stretch the truth in the aim of making real life events more interesting. However, there is one area where they all universally stretch the truth beyond all limits – weddings.
No, I don’t mean in the unlikely pairings, frequent elopements or occasional bigamy. I mean in the time it takes every soap bride to plan a wedding. In short, what is their secret and why won’t they share it?
Since getting engaged, the most common phrase I have heard is “not long to go now”, despite the wedding being a year away. In fact, read a wedding magazine and you will put it down believing there is no way you can plan a wedding without giving up your job and having four years of free time to play with. Yet, in the world of soaps, brides are able to plan and execute a wedding inside of six months or less.
It helps that the go-to reception venue is always the Rovers Return, Vic or Woolpack, which certainly cuts out all the time most couples spend scouting out stately homes, country churches or city hotels. And beware any soap bride who breaks with tradition and heads to a different venue to their local following their nuptials, as their marriage is guaranteed not to make it past the end credits if they do.
I dip in and out of Corrie and in the recent Becky-Steve-Tracy storyline I was less interested in whether Tracy’s evil deeds would be uncovered and Becky vindicated than I was in how on earth Ms Barlow (who has also sported at least two heads during her life) managed to pull together a wedding in what must have been about four months.
She managed to book a date at Arley Hall chapel – a home so grand it would make the cast of Downton Abbey weep with envy. She had arranged for a tower of beautifully decorated cup cakes to be piled up for the guests to dig into. The venue was decked out in stunning flowers. And, most tellingly of all, she had a wedding dress that fit perfectly – the top half of which, according to Corrie’s ITV makers, was bespoke. In every wedding dress shop I have been into, I have been informed at least six months is necessary to order a dress, alter it to fit you and allow for any additional alterations.
Yet not for the Corrie women months of shopping and then waiting for their dress to come. Instead, they can wander into one bridal boutique and come out swinging a bag on their arm. Soap brides also have few problems booking the venue of their dreams with just four months’ notice. And at no point do they sit down with their partner to talk money.
So, why do soap writers cut out the wedding planning? In real life, this is a stage promising so much drama that bridesmaids are driven to drink and brides end up on the brink of a nervous breakdown.
Unfortunately, I can only assume that it’s because they know that if they made the soap brides go through 12 months of worrying about whether to have roses or tulips, or sweating over a table plan, as well as juggling their affair, bankruptcy and bigamy, they would never make it down the aisle at all.
theguiltedgedbride 
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