49 Fun Facts About The Wedding Singer

The Wedding Singer opened on the eve of which 1998 holiday?

Valentine's Day fell the day after its February 13 opening; the romantic comedy was a turn for Sandler, until then known for the cruder Billy Madison and Happy Gilmore.

Who directed The Wedding Singer?

Frank Coraci directed The Wedding Singer; he said having his own heart broken a couple of years earlier let him look back on it and make being jilted funny.

Which song opens The Wedding Singer?

You Spin Me Round plays over the opening credits of a film set in 1985; minutes later Robbie has to rescue the reception from a drunken best man's toast.

Robbie Hart plies his trade in which New Jersey town?

Ridgefield is where Robbie grew up; he tells Linda it is the perfect place to raise a family, though at that point he is living in a basement on wedding gigs that pay sixty dollars.

What job does Julia Sullivan have when she meets Robbie?

Waitress at the reception hall where he sings; writer Tim Herlihy said her scenes without Sandler survived test screenings, where audiences had rejected such scenes in his earlier films.

Who plays Julia Sullivan?

Drew Barrymore plays Julia Sullivan; she had approached Sandler about working together, and The Wedding Singer became the first of three films the two made as a pair.

Julia's fiancé Glenn makes his money doing what?

Bond investing: Glenn works on Wall Street, and when Julia says he is in junk bonds he corrects her that they are high-yield bonds; on the double date he tells Robbie he cheats on her.

Who breaks the news to Robbie, moments before the ceremony, that Linda is not coming?

His older sister Kate brings the news after phoning Linda's mother, who found only a note; Robbie has been living in Kate's basement with her husband and children.

Why does Linda say she left Robbie at the altar?

He never became a rock star: Linda says she fell for the frontman of his old band, Final Warning, not a wedding singer; Robbie replies that this would have been more useful to know yesterday.

Which frequent Sandler collaborator plays Robbie's best friend Sammy?

Allen Covert plays Sammy, the would-be ladies' man who finally admits to Robbie that he is miserable and just wants someone to hold him.

Christine Taylor, who plays Julia's cousin Holly, was known for playing which TV character on film?

Marcia Brady: Christine Taylor played her in The Brady Bunch Movie and A Very Brady Sequel before turning up here as Holly, who asks Julia's blessing to go out with Robbie.

In The Wedding Singer, Alexis Arquette's keyboardist in Robbie's band is an impersonation of which flamboyant 1980s pop star?

Boy George said the impersonation had him rolling on the floor laughing, and after Arquette died in 2016 he dedicated 'Do You Really Want to Hurt Me' to the actress from the stage.

Which 1979 hip-hop classic does Robbie's elderly singing student Rosie perform at her anniversary party?

Rapper's Delight was new to Ellen Albertini Dow, who played Rosie: she said she had never heard of the song, and had no idea what rap was, before learning it for the film.

What does Rosie pay Robbie with for her singing lessons in The Wedding Singer?

Meatballs: with no clean Tupperware to hand, Rosie presses them straight into Robbie's palms and watches him eat; the lessons are for a song at her 50th anniversary party.

Which real rock star plays himself on the flight and helps Robbie win Julia back?

Billy Idol plays himself in first class, blocks Glenn with the service trolley while Robbie sings, then promises to tell record company people about his songwriting.

What is the name of the song Robbie writes for Julia and sings over the plane's intercom?

'Grow Old with You' comes to Robbie just before he flies after Julia, when he borrows a pen to jot it down; its promises run from fetching her medicine to letting her hold the remote control.

Where is Glenn confined after he tries to attack Robbie on the plane?

In an airplane lavatory: after Glenn tries to push past the service trolley to get at Robbie, he is bundled inside, leaving Robbie free to finish his song and kiss Julia.

In The Wedding Singer, where do Julia and Glenn plan to elope after Julia finds Linda answering Robbie's door?

Las Vegas; Robbie boards the same flight without knowing it, and the musical moves the whole showdown into a Vegas chapel full of celebrity impersonators.

Who makes an uncredited cameo as David Veltri, the drunken best man at the opening wedding?

Steve Buscemi plays David Veltri, the groom's brother, whose drunken toast veers into rehab and a trip to Puerto Rico before Robbie steps in; Roger Ebert wrote that the cameo gave the film its best laughs.

The Wedding Singer's rival crooner Jimmie Moore returned two decades later in an episode of which sitcom?

The Goldbergs, a sitcom set in the 1980s, named a 2019 episode after the film: Jimmie Moore turns up as Barry and Lainey's wedding nears and the groom begins to have second thoughts.

Which SNL veteran plays Mr. Simms, who interviews Robbie for a bank job?

Kevin Nealon plays Mr. Simms, who hears Robbie admit he has no experience but is 'a big fan of money', then asks him to leave.

Which actress plays Julia's mother Angie in The Wedding Singer, having also played Judy Geller, Ross and Monica's mother, on Friends?

Christina Pickles played Judy Geller across the entire ten-year run of Friends; in the film Julia confides in Angie that she no longer loves Glenn.

The Wedding Singer grossed $123 million worldwide on what production budget?

$18 million was roughly what it cost, a sum the film's first weekend in America alone managed to top.

The Wedding Singer opened in second place at the US box office behind which holdover?

Titanic was in its ninth weekend at number one and still took $28 million, so The Wedding Singer had to settle for second place on its opening weekend.

Which studio released The Wedding Singer?

New Line Cinema, which had released Austin Powers the year before, distributed The Wedding Singer; Robert Simonds and Jack Giarraputo produced it for the studio.

What does Robbie's best friend Sammy do for a living in The Wedding Singer?

Limousine driver: Julia hires Sammy for her wedding because he is the only one in town, even after he clips two cones on a test run; the stage musical moved him into Robbie's band instead.

Which future Knocked Up director did uncredited rewrites on the script with Sandler?

Judd Apatow, Sandler's former roommate, did uncredited rewrites on the script; he went on to direct The 40-Year-Old Virgin in 2005 and Knocked Up in 2007.

Sandler and The Wedding Singer's director first became friends as students at which college?

NYU is where Sandler met both the director and his freshman roommate Tim Herlihy, who went on to law school before he wrote the film.

In The Wedding Singer, what is Glenn's surname, which Julia would take by marrying him?

Gulia: Julia practises 'Mrs. Julia Gulia' in the mirror in her wedding dress and cries, then brightens when she tries 'Mrs. Robbie Hart' instead.

The bar mitzvah boy is played by Michael Shuman, who grew up to join which rock band?

Queens of the Stone Age's future bassist was on family ground: the film's co-producer, Ira Shuman, is his father.

Which Sandler-and-Herlihy song, sung by a heartbroken Robbie, appears on the first soundtrack album?

'Somebody Kill Me' is the song Robbie plays for Julia, warning that he wrote half while he was with Linda and half after she left, which is why it lurches from tender to furious.

Which genre dominates The Wedding Singer's two soundtrack albums?

New wave fills both albums, from the Smiths and New Order to Depeche Mode; the first proved popular enough that a second volume followed five months later, in July 1998.

Which 1990s band covers the Buggles' 'Video Killed the Radio Star' on the first Wedding Singer soundtrack album?

The Presidents of the USA had announced their break-up two months before the film opened, after their singer quit in late 1997, so the cover arrived as the band was bowing out.

Which 1980 J. Geils Band song does Robbie snarl through at a wedding after being jilted?

'Love Stinks', a 1980 single from the J. Geils Band album of the same name, is the song a jilted Robbie performs while heckling the guests at his first gig back.

Who is Rosie to Robbie in the 2006 Broadway musical of The Wedding Singer?

His grandmother: the musical turned the film's elderly singing student into the grandmother who raised Robbie, and gave her a song of advice, 'A Note from Grandma'.

Julia's cousin Holly models her look on which pop star in The Wedding Singer?

Madonna: when Robbie says Holly's rubber bracelets make her look like the singer, she replies that's the idea; days later a money-minded Robbie tells Julia he is a material girl, or boy.

Who earned a Tony nomination as Robbie in The Wedding Singer's original Broadway cast?

Stephen Lynch, a touring comedian known for comic songs that turn from pretty to shocking, was making his Broadway debut, and came away with a Best Actor in a Musical nomination.

Which musical beat The Wedding Singer to the Best Musical Tony?

Jersey Boys took Best Musical in 2006; The Wedding Singer went home empty-handed from five nominations, including Best Book and Best Original Score.

Before Broadway, The Wedding Singer musical premiered at the 5th Avenue Theatre in which city?

Seattle's 5th Avenue Theatre gave the show a short tryout run in early 2006, testing it away from New York as the same house had done for Hairspray.

Which 2004 romantic comedy set in Hawaii reunited The Wedding Singer's two leads?

50 First Dates began, its leading lady has said, as a more dramatic script called 50 First Kisses before it became the pair's Hawaiian reunion six years after The Wedding Singer.

What was the 2014 safari comedy, the third film pairing The Wedding Singer's leads, called?

Blended reunited the two leads with The Wedding Singer's director; they play single parents who, after a disastrous blind date, end up sharing the same African safari resort.

In The Wedding Singer musical, the wedding-chapel finale features an impersonator of which 1980s world leader?

Ronald Reagan's lookalike joins Tina Turner and Imelda Marcos impersonators to help Robbie stop the wedding; the stage show swapped the film's finale on a plane for a chapel.

Robbie orders Linda out of his T-shirt of which band 'before you jinx the band and they break up'?

Van Halen: Robbie throws Linda out the morning after she tries to come back, but Julia has already found her answering his door in the shirt and taken it that the two have reunited.

Which filmmaker did The Wedding Singer's director cite as an important influence on the film?

John Hughes: the director said he grew up on his films and was very influenced by them, and recalled that when shooting began people still asked what an '80s movie' even was.

Why did The Wedding Singer's leading lady avoid hearing Robbie's songs before filming them?

So her reactions would be spontaneous: she has said she never wants to hear a song Sandler sings to her until the cameras roll, and that he cracks her up off-script to keep her laughs real.

Which actress and script doctor was brought in to strengthen Julia's side of The Wedding Singer's script?

Carrie Fisher was hired, in the leading lady's words, to write the girl's part 'to make it balanced'; Fisher later named it among the script jobs she had fun on.

Who sings Kool & the Gang's 'Ladies' Night' in the film as rival wedding singer Jimmie Moore?

Jon Lovitz, uncredited, plays Jimmie Moore, who thanks Robbie for quitting because his own business has tripled; the song is in the film but on neither soundtrack album.

Robbie says he should have known Linda was wrong for him when she kept what on a flight?

The window seat: Linda took it on their trip to the Grand Canyon though she had been before and he had not; later Glenn refuses Julia the same seat on the flight where Robbie wins her back.

Who wrote the lyrics for The Wedding Singer musical and co-wrote its book with Tim Herlihy?

Chad Beguelin wrote the lyrics and shared the book with the film's own screenwriter, earning Tony nominations for both, though the show kept two songs Sandler and Herlihy had written for the film.