Experimentally observed periodic structures in shallow (i.e. bounded) wake flows are believed to appear as a result of hydrodynamic instability. Previously published studies used linear stability analysis under the rigid-lid assumption to investigate the onset of instability of wakes in shallow water flows. The objectives of this paper are: (i) to provide a preliminary assessment of the accuracy of the rigid-lid assumption; (ii) to investigate the influence of the shape of the base flow profile on the stability characteristics; (iii) to formulate the weakly nonlinear stability problem for shallow wake flows and show that the evolution of the instability is governed by the Ginzburg–Landau equation; and (iv) to establish the connection between weakly nonlinear analysis and the observed flow patterns in shallow wake flows which are reported in the literature. It is found that the relative error in determining the critical value of the shallow wake stability parameter induced by the rigid-lid assumption is below 10% for the practical range of Froude number. In addition, it is shown that the shape of the velocity profile has a large influence on the stability characteristics of shallow wakes. Starting from the rigid-lid shallow-water equations and using the method of multiple scales, an amplitude evolution equation for the most unstable mode is derived. The resulting equation has complex coefficients and is of Ginzburg–Landau type. An example calculation of the complex coefficients of the Ginzburg–Landau equation confirms the existence of a finite equilibrium amplitude, where the unstable mode evolves with time into a limit-cycle oscillation. This is consistent with flow patterns observed by Ingram & Chu (1987), Chen & Jirka (1995), Balachandar et al. (1999), and Balachandar & Tachie (2001). Reasonable agreement is found between the saturation amplitude obtained from the Ginzburg–Landau equation under some simplifying assumptions and the numerical data of Grubĭsić et al. (1995). Such consistency provides further evidence that experimentally observed structures in shallow wake flows may be described by the nonlinear Ginzburg–Landau equation. Previous works have found similar consistency between the Ginzburg–Landau model and experimental data for the case of deep (i.e. unbounded) wake flows. However, it must be emphasized that much more information is required to confirm the appropriateness of the Ginzburg–Landau equation in describing shallow wake flows.