Warning: Discusses spoilers for multiple films/miniseries: Made of Honor (2008), My First Wedding (2006), The Notebook (2004), Ready or Not Duology (2019 and 2026), Something Very Bad is Going to Happen (2026), and Eternity (2025).

If you’ve been on TikTok at any point in the past few months, you have probably heard a snippet from “Stop The Wedding!” This single from Ashe’s new album, The Girl of Your Dreams, has been used in countless edits for shows like Bridgerton and Gilmore Girls to movies like The Hunger Games and The Drama. The song has also been used as a way for individuals to provide words of warning or share what they find truly important, with TikToks using the sound captioned “if he doesn’t __, stop the wedding!” However, this song is not the only piece of media that falls into what can only be described as the “ruined wedding” subgenre.

Throughout the early 2000s, many rom-coms were released that seemed to focus on this trope, some more niche than others. Made of Honor (2008) follows a man who discovers he is in love with his best friend right as she announces her wedding and does his very best to stop it from happening. My Frist Wedding (2006) involves a church carpenter posing as a priest in order to try to steal a bride with a wandering eye only a week before her wedding. Probably more widely known, The Notebook (2004) features Allie running from the marriage her parents actually approved of in favor of the man she truly loves.

It is notable here that although Allie made her own decision to love Noah, coercion was used to guide her there. He originally won her heart by placing a threat upon his own life unless she agreed to go on a date with him. By climbing the Ferris Wheel and threatening to drop from it if Allie does not agree to go on a date with him, Noah drives Allie into a state of intense fear, leaving viewers to wonder if the choice was truly hers or one she had to make in order to save a life. Would Allie have ever chosen to go out with Noah if not for this emotional manipulation?

More recently, there has been a dramatic shift in genre amongst these “Stop the Wedding!” films. Instead of cute rom-coms, theaters and production companies have released movies such as the Ready or Not duology (2019 and 2026) and the miniseries Something Very Bad is Going to Happen (2026). Even lighter recent works in this subgenre, such as Eternity (2025), have dark undertones. Ready or Not features a bride forced to run and fight for her life after simply drawing the wrong card. Something Very Bad is Going to Happen has undertones of dread throughout the whole show, before finally ending in a ruined wedding and absolute carnage that occurs as a direct consequence. Eternity drives its female lead crazier and crazier, forcing her to pick which of her two past husbands she will spend the entirety of her afterlife with, and leaving her with no choice but to fight back against an unforgiving system when she realizes she has made a mistake.

Despite the shift from romantic comedy to horror, there has been a positive change in this subgenre: the addition of female agency. To quote Ashe, “you don’t have to waste your night and wear your heart out.” You can make a change. Rom-coms of the past put women in situations. These newer horror pieces are letting women take back control. The whole meaning of “ruined wedding” has been changed and given us a chance to believe that maybe it was meant to be ruined.

The clearest examples of this can be found in Ready or Not and Something Very Bad is Going to Happen. Both pieces present us with a clear ending in which a woman takes control despite whatever horrible consequences might befall her. Grace, the bride of Ready or Not escapes from the Le Domas manor, her once white wedding dress now soaked in the blood of the family who tried to kill her. Instead of running, though, she stops and lights a cigarette, finally facing a calm moment after a night of great turmoil. The police are arriving and there is no easy way for Grace to escape accusations, but she makes this active choice to take a moment of rest rather than running from a “crime” that will surely haunt her for the rest of her life. There is power in this choice.

While Grace makes a choice that will affect the rest of her life, Rachel (Something Very Bad is Going to Happen) makes a choice that will affect the rest of her eternity. If Rachel does not marry her soulmate by sundown on her wedding day, she will die. However, if she refuses to marry, the curse will pass on to his family. Rather than submitting to her family’s curse and marrying a man who is not her soulmate to save his family and have a chance at saving herself, Rachel chooses her own death. Rachel takes her fate into her own hands, refusing to become just another victim of this curse, and instead becomes the new witness for all future cursed unions. The choice she makes is one she will be stuck with until someone else follows a similar path to hers, but it is a choice that she has made rather than simply being stuck in her fate, and that is a worthy enough reason for her to make it.

Some girls dream their whole lives of walking down the aisle in a white dress, and some don’t. For such a long time, the media portrayed marriage as the only possible ending for a woman. As Jo was told when trying to get published in Greta Gerwig’s 2019 adaptation of Little Women, “If the main character is a girl, make sure she’s married by the end. Or dead.” For so long, women were expected to be homemakers and mothers, and even long after women began to have careers, the media did not always reflect that. It is long past time that changed.

Not all of these films and shows follow the same format. While earlier examples often end with a wedding, Ready or Not begins with one, and Eternity doesn’t ever feature one. However, the principle remains the same. In the early 21st century, films robbed women of their agency far more often than allowing them to retain it. Now, with a little bit of horror, a TikTok trend about knowing your worth, and maybe a bit too much blood, that narrative is being rewritten, one ruined wedding or romantic endeavor at a time.