Rufus Hound avoided nuptial stress by getting hitched in Vegas with no guests, unlike his film The Wedding Video

A comedian destined for acting fame in a film about a disastrous family wedding has admitted that he avoided any big day jitters himself by getting married in Las Vegas.

Rufus Hound, 33, said that The Wedding Video couldn’t be further from his own experience.

“I don’t think I’ve been to a wedding since where at some point the bride or groom hasn’t said they wished they had done what we did,” he said.

He married Beth, whom he met while presenting a BBC show from the Reading Festival, just four months after their first date and had no guests at all.

Director Nigel Cole, who collaborated with Calendar Girls writer Tim Firth on The Wedding Video, said Hound, best known as a panellist on ITV2’s Celebrity Juice, was “a really natural new talent”.

The next role for Hound, who lives in Twickenham, will be to try to fill James Corden’s shoes as Francis Henshall in a tour of the National Theatre’s production of One Man, Two Guvnors. It will be only his second professional stage appearance.

In the film, Hound plays Raif, who returns home from travelling to discover his once-bohemian brother (Peep Show’s Robert Webb) is marrying Saskia (Lucy Punch), a member of one of Cheshire’s most socially aspirant families.

The clan features Harriet Walter as pushy mother and Miriam Margolyes as a granny from hell.

Hound said many married couples would recognise the film’s premise: “Two people who love each other and a wedding industry that thinks nothing should be simple and no expense spared.”

Webb said it had been an “absolute joy” to work with Hound on creating the wedding — albeit without the alcohol.

“I think Appletizer is doubling for champagne, otherwise sobriety and continuity might be an issue.” Punch added that she understood how the idea that a person’s wedding has to be the best day of their life led to stress: “The high drama can turn perfectly normal people into crazed lunatics.”

Hound’s move into acting fulfils a childhood dream, while his stand-up career was driven by despair at the terrible state of the world.

He said he might have been nervous in following Corden into the Two Guvnors role, but said: “When I saw it with James, I thought it was tailor-made for a stand-up comedian.”

The film is out on Friday.