The Wedding Shop

Blame the gypsies. Or, at least, blame ‘My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding’ for re-igniting the small screen’s love affair with getting hitched. But for all the justified criticism of C4’s gawkfest, at least it had some vigour and flavour to it, however pungent. ‘The Wedding Shop’ is a banal fly-on-the-wall piece about ‘one of Yorkshire’s busiest wedding shops’, Confetti and Lace, and three of their clients as they pick their dresses and prepare for the big day.

There are clearly interesting stories to be told here: one of the shopworkers is divorced; bride-to-be Jo is a lapsed Jehovah’s witness renewing her vows the benefit of her family; Tammy has clearly had issues with both her parents as her wedding day approaches. And why do all the husbands seem so peripheral? Everyone seems to be holding something back, but there’s a fatal lack of curiosity on the part of the filmmakers, who favour a chirpy soundtrack and Alison Steadman’s mumsiest-ever narration to anything more probing. Dreary.