The One With The Cheap Wedding Dress

"The One With The Cheap Wedding Dress" is the seventeenth episode of the seventh season of Friends, which aired on March 15, 2001.

Plot

Monica is getting ready to buy her wedding dress. At a dress store, she meets a woman, Megan Bailey. Monica tells her about a discount store, Kleinman's, in Brooklyn that is having a 50% off sale soon and is simply deciding which dress she wants before she heads to the sale. Megan thanks her for the tip. Later, while at Kleinman's, Monica sees Megan again, only this time she is clutching the same wedding dress that Monica planned on buying. After wrestling her to the ground, Monica manages to escape with the dress.

Meanwhile, Chandler wants the Swing Kings to play at his and Monica's wedding. Monica promises to book them for him. When she met Megan, she told her the date of her wedding and that Chandler wanted the Swing Kings, not knowing they would have a quarrel later on. Monica learns that Megan has booked the Swing Kings on the day of Chandler and Monica's wedding and cannot have them unless she gives her the dress.

After trying to dissuade Chandler from wanting the Swing Kings, he reveals that when he was dancing with Monica to their music, it was the first time that he knew that Monica was who he "wanted to dance all [his] dances with". Monica decides that making Chandler happy is more important than the dress and calls Megan, agreeing to hand it over in exchange for letting her have the Swing Kings. Before returning the dress, she tries it on and asks Chandler not to like it since she is returning it. He "hates" the dress so much that he wants to rip it off... Monica is reluctant, but lets him do it a little to spite Megan.

Meanwhile, a cute girl, Kristen, moves in across the street from Central Perk. Ross and Joey both go on dates with her without knowing about the other one. Eventually they find out and decide that only one of them can keep dating her. They resolve to each take her on one more date and let her decide who she likes better. They set a spending limit of $100. On the night of Ross' date, Joey comes over to wish him good luck. He sees that Ross sent Kristen flowers that cost $100. He smiles at Ross, telling him "That's the limit. You're screwed!". But Ross says that he technically didn't break any rules because he sent the flowers before the actual date.

Ross takes Kristen to a restaurant, but Joey appears as an attempt to sabotage his chances with her. Ross and Joey pretend to not know each other, but get into a verbal fight that reveals very embarrassing personal information about each other (ranging from Ross' three divorces, to the VD poster Joey appeared on, to Marcel). Kristen leaves in the middle of the fight, and Ross and Joey don't notice until she is gone, but don't seem terribly fazed and decide to eat dinner anyway.

Cast and Crew

Main Cast

Jennifer Aniston - Rachel Greene
Courteney Cox - Monica Geller
Lisa Kudrow - Phoebe Buffay
Matt LeBlanc - Joey Tribbiani
Matthew Perry - Chandler Bing
David Schwimmer - Ross Geller

Supporting Cast

Andrea Bendewald - Megan Bailey
Gabrielle Union - Kristen Leigh
Kim Harris - The store owner

Crew

Directed By:
Kevin S. Bright

Written By:
Brian Buckner, Sebastian Jones, Andrew Reich & Ted Cohen

Trivia

General

Andrea Bendewald is one of Jennifer Aniston's real-life best friends, and was a bridesmaid at her wedding.
Kim Harris, who appeared as the store owner also appears in "The One With The Donor" as a cologne spritzer.
Rachel stands outside Kleinman's and says "so this is Brooklyn". The address on her wedding invitation, 495 Grove Street, actuaĺly is in Brooklyn.
Matt LeBlanc improvised his last line in the Ross and Joey story, "does a bear s*** in the woods?", but it was cut out in the TV episode.
Although a big deal is made of Chandler loving swing music and wanting the Swing Kings to play at the wedding, the band that actually plays at the wedding is called Dave Anthony Jungle Swing, and they never play any swing music. In fact this is the same band who played at Barry and Mindy's wedding.
- It is likely that the Swing Kings had to cancel at the last minute, forcing the couple to find another band to play at the wedding.
- Alternatively, Monica could have just said she booked them since she was expecting to, but not have actually done so yet. This might explain why a different band plays at the wedding.
Megan mentions that her husband wants the heavy metal band Carcass to play at their wedding. Carcass is actually a real death metal band; they were on hiatus when this episode first aired.
This is the second time Monica wears somebody else's wedding dress. The last time was that of Ross's second wife, Emily. However on that occasion Chandler didn't see it until the wedding day.
Rachel says her wedding will be in December. Her actual wedding to Ross will take place in the summer of 2004.
Joey complains that he doesn't have that much money to use on his date, while Ross does. However, Ross is a college professor, while Joey is a TV actor, so Joey should make way more than Ross.
- This is comparatively soon after Joey made his comeback on Days Of Our Lives, so he may not have received a paycheck yet or he might not have mentally adjusted to the idea that he now has money again.

Goofs

In this episode, Rachel is sitting in Chandler's Barcalounger, the one that was broken a couple of episodes ago. This episode was supposed to air before "The One Where Rosita Dies".
When Ross is walking over to Kristen's car to introduce himself, you can see the microphone moving out of the shot at the top of the screen for a second.
When Joey and Ross are arguing in the restaurant, in the shot where Ross when he mentions Joey's VD poster, his right arm is at his side but in the next shot it's instantly on Kristen's chair.

Monica chooses a wedding dress at an expensive boutique, then later goes to a discount store to buy the same-style dress at a half-off sale. The dress she buys is different from the one in the boutique, having wider and frillier straps, and a completely different neckline and bodice. When she tries it on later at the apartment, it is now the same style as the one at the boutique.
- In the interview with the clothes dresser, Debra McQuire, she explained that the dress originally designed for the episode wouldn't fit (the one seen in the boutique shop). Therefore dresses from Warner Bros' wardrobe stock were used instead.

Megan tells Monica that her husband wants the heavy metal band Carcass to play on their wedding, but the band split up in 1995 and was only reformed in 2007. However, Phoebe then says 'with a k or with a c? It doesn't matter, they're both great' - so Megan could be talking about the band beginning with a K, who, although not famous, in the story could just be assumed to be a local heavy metal band.

Monica says her wedding is May 15th, but if Rachel's birthday is May 5th and was three episodes ago, then the wedding would have passed already. If this episode had been screened in the original sequence before The One Where Rosita Dies then Rachel's birthday would be in two weeks time. The anomaly probably arises because of the change in episode sequence.

Even though Phoebe doesn't leave the apartment, she goes from not wearing any rings to having her normal rings on her hands.
It is curious that Rachel would be so anxious when surrounded by bargain shoppers, as she is historically shown to be an avid shopper. However it may be the wedding dresses freaking her out.

External links

The One with the Cheap Wedding Dress at the Internet Movie Database

Episode Navigation

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

Preceded by "The One With The Truth About London"	Season Seven Episodes	Followed by "The One With Joey's Award"


<< Season 6		Season 7				Season 8 >>
#01	"The One With Monica's Thunder"		#09	"The One With All The Candy"	#17	"The One With The Cheap Wedding Dress"
#02	"The One With Rachel's Book"		#10	"The One With The Holiday Armadillo"	#18	"The One With Joey's Award"
#03	"The One With Phoebe's Cookies"		#11	"The One With All The Cheesecakes"	#19	"The One With Ross And Monica's Cousin"
#04	"The One With Rachel's Assistant"		#12	"The One Where They're Up All Night"	#20	"The One With Rachel's Big Kiss"
#05	"The One With The Engagement Picture"		#13	"The One Where Rosita Dies"	#21	"The One With The Vows"
#06	"The One With The Nap Partners"		#14	"The One Where They All Turn Thirty"	#22	"The One With Chandler's Dad"
#07	"The One With Ross' Library Book"		#15	"The One With Joey's New Brain"	#23	"The One With Monica And Chandler's Wedding, Part 1"
#08	"The One Where Chandler Doesn't Like Dogs"		#16	"The One With The Truth About London"	#24	"The One With Monica And Chandler's Wedding, Part 2"