Spencer Tracy wanted Katharine Hepburn for his screen wife, but it was felt that they were too romantic a team to play a happily domesticated couple with children, so Joan Bennett got the part.
MGM gave Elizabeth Taylor a wedding gift of a one-off wedding dress designed by Helen Rose. (A move also designed to promote this movie.)
One of the gifts Kay gets as a present is a Venus de Milo statue with a clock in the stomach, which Stanley T. Banks refers to as a "stinker". This same gift makes its way into Father of the Bride (1991), and it still is not received well.
The picture on the nightstand at which Spencer Tracy looks is an actual photo of Dame Elizabeth Taylor as a child.
The premiere took place May 18, 1950, twelve days after Dame Elizabeth Taylor's marriage to Conrad Hilton Jr. (aka Nicky). The film's general release occurred in June. The publicity surrounding her marriage is credited with helping to make this movie so successful.