Will Ferrell and Reese Witherspoon’s new Amazon comedy, You’re Cordially Invited, which is now streaming, transports viewers to a beautiful, serene wedding venue for a not-so-serene wedding.
Written and directed by Nicholas Stoller (Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Neighbors, Bros), You’re Cordially Invited stars Ferrell as a doting single father of a soon-to-be bride, and Witherspoon as the high-strung sister of a different soon-to-be-bride. Both want to get married on the fictional Palmetto Island in Georgia, and, by a freak accident, the venue double books them on the same day. The two parties agree to share the space. As you can imagine, this comes with hurt feelings and complications.
In order to bring his movie to life, Stoller needed to find the perfect wedding venue to be the setting for his film. And, like many films these days, he also had to film in the Atlanta area, thanks to the Georgia state tax breaks for the film industry. While the Palmetto Island is not a real place in Georgia, the venue where You’re Cordially Invited is indeed, a real place. Read on to learn more about the You’re Cordially Invited filming locations.
You’re Cordially Invited was filmed in Atlanta, Georgia and the surrounding area. The scenes at the wedding venue, which is called Palmetto Island in the movie, You’re Cordially Invited was filmed at Lake Oconee, about 75 miles east of Atlanta.
While there are real places in the world called Palmetto Island, there is not a Palmetto Island wedding venue in Georgia. That was made up for the movie. However, the real Lake Oconee doubled as this fictional venue in the movie.
In an interview for the movie press notes, producer Lauren Neustadter spoke about finding the perfect filming location. “Lake Oconee is absolutely gorgeous. It’s this peaceful, secluded place, and you immediately understand why it would be the perfect spot for a wedding,” Neustadter said. “At the same time, you get why it might not be able to accommodate a huge crowd. It feels very authentic, yet it’s also the kind of place where comedy can unfold in the most natural way.”
In that same interview, writer/director Nicholas Stoller added, “I wanted the location to be very pretty and I wanted the audience to want to be at this place. I love weddings and I thought there would be something a little bit magical about doing a movie that is in a very beautiful place built around two weddings that are very different.”
For the cast and crew, it was a chance to have a bit of working vacation at the Lake Oconee resort.
“It’s this wonderful resort that has it all—beautiful architecture, a charming barn, and a stunning lakefront venue,” Witherspoon said in her press notes interview. “You’ve got pools, jet skis, boats, putt-putt golf everything you’d want for a perfect, almost fairy-tale wedding.”
Ferrell, who, like Witherspoon, is also a producer on the film was even involved in the location scouting, and helped discover the perfect venue.
“When we first saw the scouting photos, it was so exciting to watch it all come to life,” Ferrell said in an interview of the movie press notes. “It was exactly how I pictured it—a beautiful lake with this stunning boathouse. It felt like the perfect place for the kind of story we wanted to tell.”
So there you have it! If you want to follow in the footsteps of Ferrell and Witherspoon, you can book your own getaway to Lake Oconee on the resort website. Just watch out for ‘gators.