The Ultimate Wedding Planner

If movies and marriage go together like a horse and carriage, maybe it's because directors tend to be like so many brides: meticulously planning for their movie -- or their big day -- to go off without a hitch. For "Confetti" director Debbie Isitt, though, the hitch is what's hilarious.

Take her sister's wedding: "It was just unfortunate that on the day of her wedding she went totally blind," Isitt says, starting to giggle. "She put these eyedrops in her eyes to make her eyes sparkle, you know, and she had an allergic reaction. She didn't even get to see the whole thing!

"She didn't think it was funny, but I did. I wanted to do the story of her wedding, and she says, 'No, I'm just trying to forget it!' " Intrigued by wedding-day disasters, the veteran stage actress and director cooked up the outline of a story about three couples vying to win the fictional Confetti Magazine's contest for the "Most Original Wedding of the Year." (See review on Page 36.)

Isitt assigned each pair of actors a theme around which to design a wedding: Matt and Sam (Martin Freeman and Jessica Stevenson) want to stage an MGM-worthy musical extravaganza; Josef and Isabelle (Stephen Mangan and Meredith MacNeill) posit a tennis- themed wedding; and naturists Michael and Joanna (Robert Webb and Olivia Colman) plan an all-nude wedding. According to the magazine's rules, the couples have six weeks to plan, and they all must use the same venue and get the magazine editors' approval every step of the way.

With the basic conceit in place, Isitt started shooting the preparations documentary-style, following the three couples and encouraging them to improvise dialogue every step of the way, from lovers' spats and mushy moments to dress shopping and dance lessons.

"I saw each couple two days a week for six weeks," she explains. "Whilst I was seeing the tennis couple, the musical couple was working on their wedding. So that's how we got there in time," Isitt says. She admits to only a smidge of interference along the way: "I had an idea of what I wanted, and I gave them a little nudge," she says.

Isitt says there were location scouts and production design assistants helping out, "but it was really up to the actors" to flesh out the details. Of course, there were wedding planners, but they, too, were played by actors: Vincent Franklin and Jason Watkins are Heron and Hough, professional planners hired by the magazine to coordinate the three ceremonies. The actors take on everything from flower arrangements to soothing pre-wedding jitters. They also take on a lot of stress; in several scenes one or the other breaks down in tears.

"There were days when I thought the weddings aren't going to happen," the director says. While the tennis players and naturists dealt with issues of trust and respect, Matt and Sam's trials came from Sam's meddling mother and sister. "There were days on set when I thought he was going to cry," Isitt says of Freeman, who starred in "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" and BBC's "The Office."

The stress hit that pair hardest at the end, Isitt recalls: "On the day of the wedding, the wedding planners came in and said [to me], 'Matt and Sam aren't going to do it.' And I said, 'Well, I really want to have all three weddings,' and they went back and talked to them and convinced them."

Can a fake couple get cold feet before a fake wedding? Apparently, the documentary-style setup made for some blurry lines between reality and fiction.

"The weddings are my favorite part," Isitt says, "because I was so scared that they weren't going to happen. . . . They were so emotional, I cried like an idiot. Watching it, I feel like I was responsible for three couples getting married. Then I have to remind myself, no, they're actors."