My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding
Thursday at 8.30pm
Entering the world of 21st Century gypsy and traveller weddings,
where ancient traditions meet modern fashions in an ostentatious
culture clash, this film follows four gypsy and traveller families
on their wedding day.
Considered 'on the shelf' at 20, in gypsy and traveller communities
many girls get married soon after their 16th birthday with the
support of their family. The weddings are visual spectacles: brides
and their families compete to have the most flamboyant dresses;
girls parade into church in enormous dresses that sometimes weigh
more than the bride herself. Although the women look sexually
provocative there is a tradition of premarital chastity that is
increasingly unusual in Britain today.
Gaining rare access to this fascinating and often misunderstood
community, the film uses the prism of the weddings to reveal a
culture where marriages between first cousins are acceptable but
having children out of wedlock is still taboo and divorce is
unheard of.
Used to being taunted, this is a community that lives alongside but
detached from mainstream society. It is a community of
contrasts, living by centuries old religious and cultural
traditions but at the same time embracing the gaudier extremes of
the celebrity- and fashion-obsessed times in which we live.
*Teletext Captions Page 801*
