Just a Wedding
1999 · 56m · Canada
Directed by Beverly Shaffer
Genres: comedy, documentary, romance
Tones: contemplative, humorous, tender
City-raised Nadia DeFranco, who lives with spina bifida, and rural Dennis Sweet meet online, fall in love and negotiate clashing tastes and expectations while planning their wedding.
Picked by Zoe
The scouts
Everyone expects the disability narrative to be either inspiration-porn or trauma theater—Shaffer just lets Nadia and Dennis be *people*, which feels radical enough to piss off the right audiences.
A formally modest documentary that understands the lineage of intimate cinema—Shaffer's restraint in the editing, her refusal to score sentiment, positions this within a rigorous tradition of observational nonfiction.
The singular choice here is letting the couple's own humor and banter carry the film instead of leaning on narrator voiceover or explanatory talking heads; that trust in their voices transforms a wedding-planning arc into something genuinely alive.