The 2007 Television Season Finale Weddings

May is the official beginning of wedding season in America, and also the sweeps week of our favorite television shows and their season finales. So is it a coincidence that wedding nuptials have become a standard summer send off for American television? No, of course not! America loves a wedding, and television executives do too. Viewers love to see their favorite characters married off as the season ends, it makes us feel like our favorite characters are safe and taken care of in the months we don't see them. Grey's Anatomy, Bones, Desperate Housewives, Ugly Betty, ER and How I Met Your Mother all ended with a trip down the wedding aisle. And although none of them lived up to the infamous "I, Ross, take thee, Rachel" fiasco on Friends that set the standard for season finale weddings, they were still entertaining enough to get us to next season.

ER and How I Met Your Mother can share the title of "Most Uneventful Season Finale Wedding" this year. Both ER's Abby and Luka and How I Met Your Mother's Marshall and Lily got hitched without a hitch, exactly as planned. In fact, these two weddings were so uneventful that they were shown up by other season finales. In ER, Luka and Abby's wedding became yesterday's news when Neela ran into now wheelchair-bound Ray and we learned he had lost his legs. Lily's drunken comedy on How I Met Your Mother at her wedding reception could not keep us all from talking about Ted and Robin's split. It's the television season finale wedding faux pas equal to wearing white to a real-life ceremony. Even television brides shouldn't have to share the spotlight on their special day.

Grey's Anatomy is the winner of the "Most Expected Wedding Disaster" this season. We all knew Cristina would never marry Burke. It would go against the Grey's Anatomy law that says no character can live happily ever after, not when they have the opportunity to screw it all up for themselves. Of course, it was a bit of a twist that it was the romantic Dr. Burke who left the alter, in a world where even darling George O'Malley can not stay faithful in his marriage for an entire season, Burke and Cristina are probably better off abandoning the whole wedding thing. Twist or no, we all knew the Grey's Anatomy season finale wedding was doomed from the beginning, and we weren't disappointed.

Fox's forensic drama Bones can take home the statue for "Weirdest Season Finale Wedding." Set around the Jeffersonian's forensic science lab, we knew the wedding of Angela and Hodgins would be strange to say the least. Between the investigation into a little girl's murder that surrounded the wedding anticipation and ZZ Top's Billy Gibbons walking the bride down the aisle, we were not shocked at all when the state department crashed the wedding and told Angela she was still married and thus the ceremony couldn't go on. She swore it was just a broomstick jumping wedding ceremony in Fiji years before, but apparently it was legal enough, and with all the other craziness we weren't surprised when the show ended with Angela and Hodgins hand in hand running away from their wedding. Weird, yes, but oddly happy and satisfying, the Bones season finale left us on a positive note.

If anyone knows how to throw a wedding it's the gals over at Desperate Housewives, and thus these ladies can take home the prize for "Best Planned Season Finale Wedding."Gabby's over the top and drop dead gorgeous wedding to mayor and future Governor candidate Victor went smoothly, with only a little drama from Carlos, though aimed at Edie and not the bride. It was only after the wedding ceremony that we learned Victor had only married Gabby to lock in the Latino vote in the community, which sent Gabby back into the arms of her ex husband. Don't worry too much about Gabby, I'm sure she'll find a way to make Victor pay for hurting her in the best Desperate Housewives fashion next season, and I mean more than just a tryst with Carlos. But the best wedding of all season finales was Mike and Susan, a surprise wedding we didn't think would happen during the season finale. Touched by Mike's determination to work day and night to give Susan her dream wedding, Susan sets him up with a spontaneous forest ceremony surrounded by paper lanterns. The exact opposite of Gabby's socialite wedding, Susan tells Mike that the only thing that matters to her is marrying him. And so, Desperate Housewives once again makes us cry.

Speaking of crying, nothing could stop the tears from falling after the season finale of Ugly Betty. The wedding between Santos and Hilda was supposed to be written in the stars, with Hilda stumbling upon her mother's wedding dress in Mexico. Although not the biggest storyline in the tellanovella, watching Santos grow to accept his son and propose to Hilda, something he says he should have done years ago, brought a touching note to Ugly Betty.But when Santos apparently dies trying to stop a convenient store robbery (although in season finale land I never believe anyone is dead until I see the body) and Betty gives up going after the love of her life Henry to tell her sister, it's almost too much to bear. Ugly Betty gets the award for the "Season Finale Wedding that Should Have Been," and America went through tissues like crazy.

Whether they are destiny or destined to fail, season finale weddings are a staple during sweeps week, and this year's crop of season finale weddings did not leave us disappointed.