Metacritic reviews

Setting a buoyant, anything-could-happen tone from the outset, Alda as director creates what he’s striving for: a feeling of being caught up in the warm craziness of this family, as all its vivid characters push and tug to impose their will on the proceedings. His punchy, inpertinent script is equally good.

The film gently sends up the messiness of modern matrimony, and Alda has assembled an appealing group of actors and given them plenty of breathing room.

Alda's work as a writer on M*A*S*H didn't go to waste. His script delivers a lot of laughs - patently related to TV sitcom, but laughs all the same. Betsy's Wedding is fun, and LaPaglia is a find. [22 Jun 1990, p.43p]

Alda's skill is with witty, fast-talking patter and in coaxing fine performances from his actors (playing an extended family of gently caricatured New York types). The values are bollocks, but the film is fun.

It's nice enough, it's sweet, I loved LaPaglia's work, but there's nothing compelling here.

Betsy's Wedding is white cake and warm bubbly, not an unsuitable marriage, just a tepid one.

The cast is fine; Alda’s casts invariably are, but this collection has only stick figures to play.

Most of the people who see this will own funnier home videos of wedding disasters.

Julie Bovasso as Mr. Alda's Italian mother and Joe Pesci as his sleazy brother-in-law infuse their roles with as much life as possible, but they can't overcome the dullness of Mr. Alda's wedding.

There's only one problem with Betsy's Wedding. It's Alan Alda. But since he's the writer, the director and the father of the bride in the movie, that's a big problem.