The end is near for season five of New Girl, but it’s just the beginning for Cece (Hannah Simone) and Schmidt (Max Greenfield), whose wedding will air on Fox Tuesday, May 10 during the finale episode titled “Landing Gear.” Actress and fictional bride-to-be Hannah Simone shared with The Knot just how the entire cast, crew, and New Girl creator Liz Meriwether came together to create a fake wedding worthy of the realistic couple, and let us in on a few details about this season’s last two episodes!
“I think the show’s really good about reflecting things that are honest, and I think that these characters of Cece and Schmidt are so in love and comfortable with each other and they’re such good friends because they’ve gone through so much together,” Simone told The Knot.
“What is really unique about this show is that Cece has already had a wedding on the show and you could see, because that wedding and that marriage wasn’t right, you could see the conflicted heart that she had and how it manifested everywhere else.” But now it’s time for the true loves to tie the knot in what should be a beautiful vineyard wedding…
With Schmidt taking over all aspects of the wedding over multiple New Girl episodes, and even going so far as to create a wedding planning mecca in his almost all-female office’s men’s room, Simone shared that her character chose to be hands off in the planning not because it wasn’t her thing, but because she respected and loved that it was Schmidt’s.
“I think the most important thing to Cece was finding someone that she really loved and loved her more than anything and I don’t think that anyone could argue that Schmidt loves anything more than Cece,” the actress explained. “And for Schmidt it’s important for him to put on this beautiful event to celebrate that love. It’s been so sweet to watch her support what he needs to do to celebrate their love, and that makes her feel loved.”
But behind the scenes it was all hands on deck to get everything just right for a couple the show had built with real relationships in mind. Coming together with the common goals of creating a beautiful wedding dress from a ridiculous one, showcasing a realistic cross-cultural wedding, and remaining true to the silliness that is New Girl, Simone said that everyone played a part in pitching ideas.
Speaking on Cece’s terrible mirrored, light-up wedding dress Simone told The Knot, “It was a cool, kinda real life process too where we had to figure out how to take this ridiculous choice that Cece and Winston made while really drunk, but we also wanted to deliver this beautiful moment in the finale at the wedding for the fans that have been waiting so long for Cece and Schmidt to get together.”
Credit: Adam Taylor/FOX
The actress shared how she, New Girl’s creator and writer Meriwether, the head of costuming Debra McGuire, and co-star Zooey Deschanel (Jess) had some actual wedding dress drama while trying to transform Cece’s wedding dress saying, “What was so great about it is that I remember they sent me photos of the first idea for how to flip the dress into something else and it didn’t seem quite right.”
Simone shared with The Knot, “We’re a pretty close collective. We all want it to be the best for the show and for the moment and we’re all women! So we all sat there and were like, ‘I don’t know what it is but this is not the dress.’ So we told Debra McGuire to keep working on it.”
Credit: Adam Taylor/FOX
The on-screen bride-to-be who had never attended a wedding dress fitting went through several rounds of dress samples, and even called on her own, real life mother for advice saying, “I remember talking to my mom about it a little bit like, ‘It just doesn’t feel right,’ and even my mom was like ‘how about this?’ and sending me sketches. It was really funny. Like it was not a real wedding but everyone took it seriously!”
And, like a real bride saying yes to the dress, Simone told The Knot, ‘When we did the final fitting with the final dress, it’s true what people say. You just know. I was like, ‘Oh, that’s the dress. That makes perfect sense.’ It was definitely a labor of love.”
Simone also shared that Cece and Schmidt’s varied backgrounds within the wedding ceremony were an important conversation she was glad to be a part of. “You’re not just bringing to people together, you’re bringing two families together, and two histories together…that was another thing that was built into the conversation to make sure that it was just reflective of each other’s cultures,” the actress said.
Credit: Adam Taylor/FOX
“We had conversations about what Indian touch could we bring to Cece’s wedding dress and what Jewish touch could we bring to Schmidt’s side of the wedding party. It was really great the conversations that we got to have in bringing these two very different people together and families together in this fake wedding. Very serious business for a fake wedding!”
Lightening up the mood is Winston Bishop (Lamorne Morris) who takes on his prankster persona “Prank Sinatra” for another spin at Cece and Schmidt’s wedding. Simone told The Knot, “You should be very afraid, it’s Winston Bishop! He can’t contain himself! It’s how he shows love.” Don’t worry, she didn’t give up what his prank is because “that’s the joy,” of it, she said, “is it going to be the most low-stakes prank ever or is he gonna burn the venue down? You just don’t know.”
“That’s why it’s such a fun episode to watch,” she said, “because the entire time you’re paying attention to 90% of it, but in the back of your head you’re like ‘this whole thing could just literally combust.’ An elephant could just run through for no reason. I love that weird, wildcard factor of Winston.”
Credit: FOX
Other hilarious antics that New Girl fans should watch out for? The entirely made-up, somewhat historical party game True American is coming back for the pre-wedding episode titled “Wedding Eve!” According to Simone, Cece makes the “necessary evil,” of True American happen for Jess the night before the wedding sharing, “It was kind of a nice way to wrap up the season because it’s not very often that all of us are together – or shooting together because of the variety of storylines.”
The actress told The Knot that Coach (Damon Wayans, Jr.) returns to the show for the wedding, adding, “After a season of shooting is was kinda nice for all of us to be in a room and get to be our weirdest selves on camera. And it’s a really wild True American, I’ll say that.”
Credit: Adam Taylor/FOX
Of course it the way of New Girl is to toss these realistic, loveable characters into semi-plausible and humorous conundrums, and Cece and Schmidt’s wedding is no different. With one final spoiler Simone hinted to The Knot just why that mysterious tablet is making its rounds in the sneak peek photos.
Simone told The Knot, “In the season finale Schmidt has an epiphany that his job as a husband is to make Cece happy, and she’s not going to be happy unless her family is there (and her family is her mom).” With Cece’s mom not at the wedding but all the way in Portland the actress said Schmidt “decides to try and go get her…and he has this realization the morning of their wedding.” Yikes!
“His heart is in the right place,” she said, “but he goes and gets on a plane to leave and doesn’t tell anyone. It’s a surprise to wake up and find that your groom is gone in the middle of the night!”
We’ll have to wait and see how Schmidt’s mission to get Big Mama P. turns out, but in looking at the New Girl season finale sneak peek photos, we think it’ll all go (sort of) according to plan.
Credit: FOX
Watch Cece and Schmidt tie the knot on New Girl’s two-part season finale on Tuesday, May 10 on Fox, starting with a game of True American on “Wedding Eve” at 8pm ET, and ending with Cece and Schmidt’s wedding on “Landing Gear” at 9pm ET!
