In Netflix’s hit “Virgin River” show, the much-anticipated wedding between main characters Mel and Jack was an elaborate, dreamy affair with the whole town attending.
Hot on the heels of the season’s release last week, Netflix shared a look into what went behind putting it together, from bringing in props from past seasons to tying in elements like river rocks that signify the couple’s relationship.
“It’s a huge wedding,” Alexandra Breckenridge, who plays Mel Monroe, says in the video. “I was surprised about that, to be honest with you. I thought it was gonna be quite small and intimate by a riverside somewhere.”
The sixth season of the romantic drama, which follows the love story between nurse practitioner Mel and former marine-turned-bar owner Jack (Martin Henderson) in the quaint little town of Virgin River, came out released last week on Dec. 19, picking up a few months after Season 5’s Christmas-themed episodes as the community gathers to celebrate the nuptials.
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While the couple had a low-key wedding in the “Virgin River” books by Robyn Carr, showrunner and executive producer Patrick Sean Smith told the LA Times that he felt the fans would “have come for me and my family” if he had stayed true to the book.
“It felt reasonable to deviate,” Smith said. “It just felt like to go six seasons and build to this epic milestone for this couple, that had to be big.”
And big it was. Not only did Mel and Jack get a rustic farm wedding at their future home, but the décor also included flower arches, ice sculptures and doves. Wesley Schultz of the Lumineers wrote the song that the couple first dances to after the wedding.
Shooting the wedding episodes was ‘really hard’
The two wedding episodes of Season 6 were filmed over 16 days, Smith told the LA Times. Filming for the wedding took place about an hour outside of Vancouver, Annette O’Toole, who plays Virgin River Mayor Hope McRae, told USA TODAY last week. Smith said concerns over weather prompted them to shift the location just a few days before filming.
“The wedding was really hard because it took place over a long period of time, and it was out on a location that we’ve never used before,” O’Toole said “It was a lot to get people there every day (and) get them dressed in their full wedding attire most of the time.”
O’Toole was lucky to wear a suit with her long Johns underneath, but others, especially the “bridesmaids in their little, cute, very, very skimpy dresses,” weren’t so fortunate.
“The hardest part of filming in Vancouver sometimes is you’re out there all day on location, we never get to go back to our trailers. Or very rarely,” O’Toole added. “Working in all the elements makes you really tired when you’re outside all day.”
Breckenridge told the LA Times that she wore fleece-lined leggings under her wedding dress to give an illusion of skin as she battled the cold temperatures. In fact, the shrug Mel wore over her dress after the vows was the actor’s own and which she wore on her own wedding to musician Casey Hooper in 2015.
