Growing up in the 90s and early noughties, the pinnacle of adulthood looked like a frothy white wedding dress and a ‘happily ever after’. Weddings were the climax of so many of my favourite films and TV shows. Gossip Girl—which enraptured me so much that I took to calling my friends by their last initial only—literally ends with (spoiler alert) Dan and Serena’s long-awaited nuptials when they were, oh, I don’t know, 23.
The fact that weddings were so often the closing act for my favourite stars got me wondering what happened to these women after they were married. If this, as I was led to believe, was the happiest day of their lives, did everything go downhill after? That seemed like a grim fate to befall my favourite heroines, even if they were fictional.
