Real-Life Loves
Sarah Jessica Parker Shares Rare Details About Her ‘Secret’ Wedding to Matthew Broderick
Sarah Jessica Parker was on the cusp of a new chapter just as the role of Carrie Bradshaw on Sex and the City came into her life. The actress sat down on the Are You a Charlotte? podcast with longtime costar Kristin Davis to chat about the early days of the hit HBO series.
Parker opened up about the timing of Sex and the City and another important moment in her life: her wedding. The And Just Like That star shared new details about her 1997 nuptials to Matthew Broderick.
When the actress learned about Sex and the City, she was starring in the Broadway production of Once Upon a Mattress and preparing to tie the knot. “I was going to get married,” she told Davis. “It was a secret, yes. I had a wedding date, and I didn’t really want to mess with that date because I had understood that maybe it was shooting around the exact same time, and we had cleared that date primarily because of all friends who worked in theater only have Mondays off, so our wedding was on a Monday.”
Parker explained that she met with creator Darren Star to tell him that she “loved” the script, but she did have a couple of crucial notes regarding Carrie.
“I alerted him to the fact that I didn’t do scenes nude, that I just, for whatever reason, right or wrong, I just never felt comfortable doing that,” Parker admitted. Star was fine with that stipulation.
She added, “And I said that I also wanted to be a little thoughtful about language, that I wanted to make sure that Carrie cared about what words came out of her mouth, that if she was a writer and being thoughtful about her use of language in a column, even amongst friends where you can get purposefully sloppy, especially if you’re drinking, that I still wanted her to be somebody that wasn’t just tossing around let’s call him bad words.”
The Golden Globe winner also made sure that filming didn’t interfere with her wedding to Broderick. The couple already “couldn’t take a honeymoon” because Broderick was shooting a movie, and she was still in Once Upon a Mattress.
Thankfully, the scheduling worked out. Parker got her happy ending with Broderick and the role of a lifetime. The couple married on May 19, 1997, and she famously wore a black wedding dress. Parker and Broderick have since welcomed three children: son James Wilkie and twin daughters Marion and Tabitha.
