#48 – Wedding Bells

It’s  finally warm on the East Coast, and with all the warmth, there’s pollen, allergies, and in my case, strep throat. So I’m taking a day, and what better way to take a day, than to watch Wedding Bells, starring perennial favorite of Hallmark movies, Danica McKellar, and also starring Bruce Boxleitner, who I really remember from that SNL skit where they try to auction off Mark Hamill (#LukeSkywalkerRules) not to be mistaken for Mr. Boxleitner (SNL SKIT with Actual Mark Hamill!) Why that just popped in my head when I started this, I don’t know. I blame the antibiotics, and my freakish memory that brings up crap like that. Anyway, On with the Show.

New York aerial shots, leading to Danica McKellar as Molly, as a clothes designer who is super stressed. Her best friend is Amy (that Jane Bennett from Darcy with Dogs again!). Molly is maid of honor for Amy’s wedding – and how are they friends, when Molly wants to eat a cheesesteak, and Amy wants to eat kale chips? I don’t know. Off we go to a wedding dress fitting at “The Bridal Gallery” which is as aptly named as any store that you would find in Sweet Valley, California (check out Double Love – the Best SVH Podcast! for more info on that!) Molly says she doesn’t need a man, and she’s happy with that, and Amy is like, sure, dear. Whatever. Amy and James have a friend named Nick, who is the best man at the wedding. Nick owns a restaurant, where they serve stuff with foam. Molly is not a fan of the foam, and Nick is played by some actor who is just too short to be a leading man.

Amy’s father just lost all his savings in some kind of Bernie Madoff thing, and now they don’t have enough money to have the wedding. First things first, Amy lives in a freaking palatial apartment in New York with a full size kitchen. She’s not hurting for money, she should just pawn some of her jewelry and be back in business. But whatever, then we wouldn’t have a movie. Nick’s father owns an Inn in the Berkshires, which is “falling apart” but fiance James is begging.  Aside: Nick is mad that Molly didn’t enjoy any of his fancy schmancy foods and promises to make her macaroni and cheese next time. Speaking as someone who had to really cut down on carbs, macaroni and cheese sounds fantastic. End of aside.

Nick’s primary investor also got caught in the Ponzi scheme, so suddenly he’s got time to cater a wedding, and now they are off to the Berkshires in a faux-mini-Cooper. They stop at a diner that is famous for their pies, and apparently Molly is super crazy about their ranch dressing, which is scratch-made. Nick double dips into the ranch. Ew. Molly is the only one with good news (something about Barney’s and her winter line), but she’s being low-key, as Amy’s credit card won’t even cover a roadside diner lunch. Nick thinks she’s cool for subtly picking up the tab.

Enter Bruce Boxleitner as Nick’s dad, and Charlie, the proprietor of the Inn. He’s gruff and they’ve got baggage, which of course will get unpacked before the end of the movie. For a run down Inn, the kitchen is amazing. Molly is all about the outdoors, and Fiance James is all about saving money by living in the country, and now they found the barn, which is basically Clark’s barn hangout from Smallville just dirtier. Molly, girl, with no finances, how are you going to clean up all this dirt, and make her a wedding dress, because Amy can’t pay for the dress she tried on at the beginning. Now, when I got married, by the time I had my final fitting, the dress was paid for, but I guess in movieland, they don’t worry about things like deposits. For plot reasons, Amy and James leave Molly and Nick to do most of the planning, so they are on their own, with Nick’s dad, in the Berkshire, who makes pizza bagels, and Nick is too much of a chef to eat one.

Molly has relationship issues because her parents got divorced. Nick has issues because his mom is dead, and I guess Charlie never recovered from losing his wife, and that’s why he lives in the sad times. Molly still has optimism, though, and thinks to solve all sad times with hugs. Does she know my kids?

Even though,  there is no way she would have ended up in Nick’s old room – on her way to the bathroom, she ends up in Nick’s old room, and starts snooping. He’s cool with it, but still, you knew it wasn’t the bathroom, and that was a dumb excuse. Next morning, even though Nick said don’t cook with my dead mom’s cookbook, Molly decides to cook from his dead mom’s cookbook – country baked omelette. But it’s the same as he remembers it!

The wedding is in a week, and there has been precious little cleaning happening so far – she’s just pretended to sketch the barn as “upscale vintage farmhouse.” Nick is all about modernizing, glass and metal, which does NOT work in a set that basically screams Shabby Chic. Amy can’t choose between the two contrasting styles, and James wants to go to an Elvis drive-through chapel, so now Molly has come to the rescue with a modern / traditional fusion wedding – basically by perusing Pinterest for a few hours. Her key change – make things blue. Whatever, Molly. This seems dumb. But Nick loves to look at Molly.

Molly has just accepted the challenge to teach Nick how to relax – but maybe the week before the wedding where they have to fuse two styles together and fall in love in the meantime isn’t the best time to do that? But Nick earns my respect (or at least the writer earns my respect) by name-checking The Sound of Music, so I’ll let this slide. It was his mom’s favorite movie, and he’d watch it every year. I wonder if he would turn it off after the wedding like my Grandmother made me do – she didn’t want to see the Nazis, so for 10 years, I never saw the proper end of the movie. Whatever. My baggage. Anyhoo, Molly and Nick have a lot of cute, get to know you banter, which makes this different from the usual movies I’ve recapped – see my first one, A Christmas Prince, where they basically had 3 whole conversations before he was ready to marry her.

Nick’s dad has called in some more grizzled men to help with the clean up and we’re off to more wedding plans! Nick wants to serve a salmon mousse parfait. Ew. She suggests Chicken Pot Pie. At a wedding? Seriously? Lots of knife skills montage and he makes his version of a pot pie which she can eat right out of the oven, and she loves it! But then, Nick mentions he’ll serve veal, and we’re anti-Nick again.

Amy is crying because she has to wear discount shoes at her wedding. Amy. You Suck.

Molly is trying to teach Nick about how listening to the rain is nice. Relaxation? She’s taking advantage of the killer firelight ambiance highlighting her cheekbones, and Nick actually slows down. Kiss action is cut short by a leak in the roof. They are in the first floor – so where is the leak coming from? More banter, this time over the piano, and more longing glances, but no more kissing. They do play Chopsticks, though.

Molly can’t get her winter line designed, but she is delighted that Nick left her cookies outside her door.  They look really good and now I want a cookie. She got inspired to re-sew some curtains, and when Nick offers to help, she abandons sewing in favor of a big cleaning montage in a very oddly-lit room.  3 am rolls around, and Nick makes her bruschetta. She thinks it’s amazing, and I’m wondering how you can make bad bruschetta. His food metaphors are very clearly about how much he thinks she’s awesome and how they should team up together, for-eva, but we’re still 40 minutes away from the end of the movie, so they will remain food metaphors without anyone doing anything.

Molly gets a lesson in love from Charlie, and she finds all his love letters to his late wife, and all she does is cry over them, but I don’t think she should have read them. Do you? Nick doesn’t think she should have done, but at the very least, it does get Nick and Charlie talking to each other. (Charlie loved his wife so much that when she died, he fell apart and Nick felt abandoned by his dad. You know, that old chestnut.)

Then we cut to James and Amy. She would rather be dead than live outside Manhattan, and James is like whatever, you’re broke, you don’t have much of a choice. Since James is the one with the job, and Amy is the one living off her parents’ now defunct bank account, I’m totally on James’ side here. Because Amy, you suck. But Amy decides not to face the problems in her relationship by teasing Molly about her supposed feelings for Nick. Way to be a grown-up, Amy.

Nick is the type of chef who does that thing with a sauce on a spoon and then making a swoop. Right now, Molly has more sparkage with Nick than Amy has with James. Molly reads Nick’s parents’ letters to the betrothed couple in the hopes of inspiring their vows, and of course, Nick and Molly, while reading from different letters, have coherent thoughts that flow back and forth like water between them. Of COURSE they do. And this makes Molly and Nick stare at each in “oh my goodness we’re in love” but Amy and James, not so much inspired.

Bachelor / Bachelorette nights – video games and nachos for the guys, pizza, wine and dangerous needles and pins. I think the boys win this. But Charlie and Nick also bond over video games and Molly finishes Amy’s wedding dress, which is FULL of applique, and so don’t tell me she managed to sew all of that while eating pizza and drinking wine. Because ain’t no way in hell she did that.  It is a pretty dress, though.

Next morning, Nick makes banana blueberry pancakes, and Charlie says he’s proud of his son. Cue all the feels.

Movie magic is alive and well in the Berkshires, because the barn cleaned up super nice and how did they manage to get all those hydrangeas? More almost kiss action, but interrupted by Amy and James. I’m just curious about who brought up these two people, who basically did nothing about their own wedding and got their best friends to do everything for them. Are they out there saving cancer kids or something? Because seriously, this couple is awful, and she keeps stating how she won’t leave NYC. We get it, Princess, you can’t exist outside Manhattan. It’s not always about you, though!

Nick and Molly don’t think that Amy and James are in love. Because how do we even know what it feels like, Molly asks? I think it feels like this, Nick says and finally gets his kiss action going. And they are silly and funny with it, but being a Hallmark movie, that’s all we get, even though he walks her to her bedroom door. They both say they won’t say anything to Amy and James about how they think they are not happy anymore, but in the middle of the night they both talk to their friends. Amy and James say they are happy and will get married.

But now we’re at the wedding, and we’re waiting on the bride and groom – who show up not dressed for the occasion – and they are not going to get married! But they are ok with it. And then Nick screws it up by saying that when they get back to their own lives, they might be too busy to even see each other, and isn’t that what we both want anyway. Way to still be the romantic guy from the night before. Molly’s Sad Times begin and she runs away on her bone-colored heels.

Aside – to tell you how similar all these movies are, if you haven’t guessed that at all:  Hallmark is going to be running a June Weddings month next month.  Man who plays Nick will be in another movie with Wedding Bells in the title, and his name will ALSO be Nick, and he will be in love with a different actress, whose name is Molly. I don’t write ’em, I just report on ’em. End of Aside.

Back in NYC, we find out that Amy does have a job – she works in a gallery. Molly is super stressed, and Nick reinvented his restaurant. Neither has called the other. Nick’s restaurant is back open, and Molly sold her line to Barney’s but neither are happy. Molly calls Nick’s dad, all the while holding a briefcase that again (see last blog) has NOTHING in it. Ugh, people. We look at these things. It’s not just a prop! Molly shows back up at the Inn, and this time she drives a Fiat. Where did she get the Fiat? But she gets the hug from Nick’s dad, and she hears Nick playing the piano in front of artistically placed French doors, and they are back in love and out of the Sad Times and engaged! Gotta give it to Danica McKellar, she happy cries great.

Back in the barn, it’s Nick and Molly’s wedding – and she’s wearing the dress she designed for Amy, which fits even though Amy is basically 8 inches taller than her. Gotta love being a fashion designer. Oh, and Amy is wearing Molly’s old bridesmaid dress. See, you CAN wear them again. We also know that Amy is enjoying her life without James because her hairstyle is not so severe.They do the ring ceremony without ever saying anything. That’s weird. Did we just gloss right over them?  And The End.

I didn’t hate this one – props to Danica McKellar – she’s charming. I wanted her to end up with someone who is taller, but we can’t have everything. There are more wedding movies coming, and I just saw a trailer for a new “Prince in Disguise” movie that stars someone from The Tudors and Reign, and I’m SUPER stoked for that one. I don’t think I’ll have time to revisit Molly and Nick, but as there are more Mollys and Nicks to see later, it’ll be ok. I’ll watch the new one, of course, just so you don’t have to.