My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding
Channel 4, Thursday 18 February 9:00pm - 10:00pm"Traveller girl" Joan has been saving for her wedding since she was 13. She's now 22 and in traveller terms she is, she says without a trace of rancour, "a bit old" to be a bride. Joan's wedding dress, a baked Alaska concoction of satin and crystals, is so enormous she can only shuffle down the aisle of the church like a small ship on a white sea, as the waves of her gown bump the pews. Meanwhile, 16-year-old Bridget has to launch herself out of her wedding carriage into the arms of relatives as the billows of her dress make a bid for freedom some yards behind her. It might sound comical, but Osca Humphreys' affectionate, revealing film looks beyond the clouds of fabric to examine Britain's tight-knit gypsy community and its dearly held traditions, including tumultuous weddings and opulent bridal dresses. What emerges is a picture of a fiercely patriarchal society, where parents protect their daughters from the influence of dissolute "country girls" (non-travellers) and their drunken ways.
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