In a nineteenth-century European village, the shy Victor van Dort is rehearsing his marriage vows alone in the woods when he accidentally slips the ring onto what turns out to be the finger of a buried corpse bride. Dragged into the colorful, bustling world of the dead, the young man finds himself wed to the enigmatic Emily, while in the land of the living his real fiancee, the sweet Victoria, waits for him in despair. Torn between two worlds and two loves, Victor must unravel the tragic secret of his spectral wife. In this stop-motion animated fable, Tim Burton unfurls his gothic, melancholy universe, bittersweet and surprisingly tender.