Robert Altman's A Wedding is a humorous wedding satire where a blue collar girl marries into a wealthy family with mob connections. The humor is a bit dark at times, especially when the matriarch of the higher-class family (Lilian Gish) passes away in her upstairs room of her mansion while the wedding takes place downstairs. Another scene involves a car crash.The film is discussed by several members of the cast and crew in the book Robert Altman: The Oral Biography by Mitchell Zuckoff (2009, Random House), In the book, screenwriter John Considene remembers that Altman wanted to make a film about "The American wedding industry". Considene and Altman created over twenty characters and numerous story arcs, carefully planned in advance. Co-screenwriter Allan Nichols remembers, "If anything A Wedding was about gossip and how gossip spreads and how gossip hurts, and how gossip helps and how gossip kills and how gossip kills the right guy sometimes." In the same book, Carol Burnett (who plays the mother of the bride) remembers that Altman said to the actors "Please if you have an idea for a scene, come to me with it. I want to hear it. Some of the best scenes in my movies have come from the actors' ideas".
Altman pledged all of his profits from the film to the proposed Equal Rights Constitutional Amendment, although the profits from the film were not much.
With Mia Farrow, Peggy Ann Garner, Howard Duff, Mia Farrow, Paul Dooley, Geraldine Chaplin, Dina Merril, Lauren Hutten and Desi Arnaz, Jr.