Katherine Heigl And Alexis Bledel Play Lesbian Brides In ‘Jenny’s Wedding’ [Video]
Katherine Heigl and Alexis Bledel are playing a pair of blushing lesbian brides just in time to help America celebrate its LGBT pride.
The trailer for Jenny’s Wedding was released a few days after members of the LGBT community and their supporters celebrated the United States Supreme Court ruling that made same-sex marriage legal in all 50 states. However, Jenny’s Wedding doesn’t exactly look like a celebration of marriage — there are a lot of tears and fears in the trailer.
Grey’s Anatomy star Katherine Heigl plays Jenny, a woman who hasn’t told her conservative parents that she’s a lesbian. She decides to ask her girlfriend Kitty (Alexis Bledel) to marry her before coming out of the closet to her family, and her mother (Linda Emond) doesn’t respond with much enthusiasm when she finds out that her daughter is marrying a woman.
“Ever since you were a little girl, I thought about your wedding,” Jenny’s distraught mom says in a teary scene. “Now I don’t even know if you’ll wear a dress.”
(Spoiler alert: Katherine Heigl and Alexis Bledel both get to rock gorgeous gowns in the movie). You can check out the trailer below.
Jenny’s Wedding was filmed long before the SCOTUS’ landmark same-sex marriage ruling, but its story certainly isn’t any less relevant now that gay marriage is legal. Many Americans still don’t believe that same-sex couples should be allowed to marry, and Jenny’s conservative parents really struggle with their daughter’s decision to wed her partner. In one scene, Jenny’s father (Tom Wilkinson) says that he knows that times are changing, but he and his family are “not rebels.”
The process of planning Jenny’s wedding eventually causes a rift between her family members. Jenny’s sister (Grace Gummer) is with her when she’s trying on wedding dresses, but her mother is not. In another scene, Jenny’s mother and father share a difference of opinion.
“We’ve always done everything together for as long as we’ve been married,” her mother says. “I’ll do this alone if I have to.”
Alexis Bledel told AfterEllen that Jenny’s family members aren’t the only ones who experience conflicted feelings about Jenny’s marriage announcement. Alexis’ character Kitty also goes through a lot of different emotions after her partner decides that she wants to walk down the aisle.
“Jenny literally comes home one day and makes an announcement about how she sees her future, and it’s definitely–it’s exciting and surprising,” the former Gilmore Girls star said.
“It’s a lot of mixed things. Jenny is inviting her to feel hopeful about something that she hasn’t allowed herself to feel hopeful about. The more measured part of her personality is wanting to be sure that this is really a possibility before getting her hopes up all the way.”
According to TV Guide, Jenny’s Wedding will hit theaters on July 31, and its VOD release will be August 31. It’s described as a “rom-com,” but it looks about as heavy on the comedy as Heigl’s last wedding movies, 27 Dresses and The Big Wedding. Jenny’s Wedding was written, directed, and co-produced by Mary Agnes Donoghue, screenwriter of the 1988 dramedy Beaches. Donoghue based Katherine Heigl’s character on a niece who came out to her sister by announcing that she was marrying a woman.
Jenny’s Wedding will be the first theatrically-released film centered on a lesbian wedding, so maybe being attached to something so groundbreaking will help Katherine Heigl’s career bounce back after a series of nasty rumors about her bad reputation and the cancellation of her NBC TV series State of Affairs.
Are you looking forward to watching Katherine Heigl and Alexis Bledel walk down the aisle together, or do you think Rory Gilmore and Izzie Stevens make a terrible match?
[Image credits: Frederick M. Brown, Jesse Grant/Getty]
