Marry Me At Christmas

Welcome back! Based on all the previews I have seen, Hallmark is really amping up the crazy for 2017. I’m excited to bring you my thoughts and feelings about all of this nonsense again this Christmas season.

I have a new partner in crime on the blog: Baby G arrived in September. She isn’t adding much to the commentary at this stage, but she is making me more sleep deprived, which usually increases the frequency and intensity of my plothole-related rants.  Typos are also going to go up by at least 25 percent, since I’m typing a lot of these entries with one hand while holding her. Get excited for trying to decipher what some of these sentences mean, loyal readers!

Hallmark decided to start airing new movies before Halloween this year, which feels excessive. This movie is evidence that they are burning off the really bad ones early before people are watching. Fun fact: I recorded some movies when Hallmark did Christmas in July so I could get a jump on some entries before Baby G arrived. At that time, Hallmark aired commercials for the big Five Nights of Thanksgiving event (this is when the new CCB movie premiers every year, so a slot in this block is prime real estate for a Hallmark movie). The July commercial is full of clips for “Marry Me at Christmas.” Obviously someone at Hallmark actually watched “Marry Me at Christmas” at some point during the fall and realized it was not worthy of being introduced by CCB during a five night movie event. Thus it was bounced to October and will be replayed throughout early to mid-November until the good movies come out for the year. Aren’t you excited to hear about it now? Good.

In a Nutshell

Maddie, who I think looks a tiny bit like Uma Thurman with intensely curly hair, owns a small town wedding dress shop. We get a ridiculous amount of exposition in the first two minutes, where we learn that Maddie’s shop is struggling but she has big plans for social media that will save it (Hallmark believes that e-commerce saves everything), and also she loves Christmas the most. A woman wanders into the shop with her fiancé looking for a dress and tells Maddie she needs it ASAP. We come to find out that Ginger (aka Poor Man’s Anna Camp) designed the town’s website even though she is not from here.  Since she and her fiancé will be moving to London in January so he can do a cardiac residency (more on this in a sec), they want to get married before they go. Wouldn’t it be perfect to get married on Christmas in a small town to which they have no real ties at the last minute? Ginger thinks so!

The fiancé was really bothering me throughout the movie. First of all, would a medical license from the US transfer to the UK? I feel like the answer to this is no. Why would you need to be a heart surgeon in London? Judging by the fact that we see him practicing surgical cuts on a banana at one point, I’m guessing he was not qualifying for any prestigious US-based residency programs. I made a note that I was really hoping he was secretly evil and that him being a jerk was going to be part of the conflict of the movie, but that would be too interesting for a Hallmark movie premiering in October. Instead he is just kind of around, taking little to no interest in wedding planning other than requesting a groom’s cake shaped like an anatomically correct heart. Boring.

Anyway, Ginger somehow ends up asking Maddie to be her wedding planner, even though Maddie has never done this before and that initial exposition made it sound like Maddie had a bunch of other stuff she needed to do in December to save her business. Maddie says yes after being pushed into it by a woman constructing a gingerbread house in the street (sure).

We then cut to a billboard in Los Angeles for a crazy movie called “Fire’s Edge 2” starring Johnny Blake. Johnny is lunching with his super intense agent Barb (she is kind of my favorite character in this movie) and tells her he will be going up to the mountains for a few weeks to get away. It is so exhausting being famous. Johnny is really just feeling overwhelmed by the expectation that he will make “Fire’s Edge 3,” plus everyone keeps trying to take his picture.  SO HARD, you guys. Barb is not pleased and makes him promise to read the script. Johnny heads to the small town…wouldn’t you know that he is Ginger’s brother? He is paying for the wedding because their parents are dead and they are tragic adult orphans and he has lots of money from his dumb action movies. Johnny is (correctly) skeptical about Maddie’s skills as a wedding planner, and accuses her of only wanting the publicity of being connected to him. Maddie (correctly) points out that she only just now learned that Ginger had a famous brother. This scene takes place in a bookstore where Johnny’s face is on literally every magazine, which made me laugh. Anyway, Johnny keeps proposing dumb over-the-top stuff for the wedding, which Ginger and Maddie politely shoot down.  Johnny also comes to like that no one in the town makes a big deal about him being famous (except the one lady who wants to take a selfie with Johnny using a Polaroid and post it on her physical bulletin board. Get it, you guys? Because charming small town ladies don’t know how technology works!) He starts spending his days strolling with Maddie and sketching quaint small town scenes and karate fighting a little kid at a Christmas party (yes, this part was as weird as it sounds). Barb keeps calling to see if he has read the script yet, because HOLLYWOOD WILL NOT WAIT.

But Do They Find The Meaning of Christmas?

Hell yeah they do! The Weirdly Aggressive Carolers are back! They are going to sing at Ginger’s wedding, obvi. Because these volunteer carolers have nothing better to do on Christmas than perform at a stranger’s wedding with only two weeks’ notice.  Johnny and Maddie have a snowball fight in the street, like normal human adults do. There is a Christmas tree lighting and also something where you tie ribbons to a fence and make a wish (Baby G was fussing during this part, so I missed the explanation for this and just didn’t care enough to rewind to figure it out).

Sidebar: Maddie wears like four or five different coats throughout this movie, and they are all gorgeous. However, why would a person who owns a failing business have so many obviously expensive wool coats? You are not making smart financial choices, girl. Get it together.

Are There Obstacles To Their Love/Christmas Spirit??

Of course. Maddie had been burned by a previous boyfriend who moved to The Big City and left her behind, and Johnny assumes everyone is trying to use him for something. They use these tragic backstories as the excuse for why they cannot date, even though Maddie’s overly involved parents can tell that these two are truly in love. As a result, Maddie and Johnny have a serious of super awkward interactions where they try to fight their feelings for each other. It was hard to watch, mostly becaue the actor who plays Johnny is not good at acting. I also found the color of his hair to be very distracting for some reason. It was a color that doesn’t really occur in nature and gave me a very Ken doll vibe.

Anyway, there is like a five minute conflict where Johnny goes back to LA and has dinner with an actress, which somehow ends up on TV. Maddie freaks out. At the same time, Maddie’s business partner starts advertising that they are doing work for Johnny. Johnny freaks out. Oh no, a misunderstanding!

But Do They Fall In Love At The End?

Johnny ends up having a heart to heart with Maddie’s dad, which makes zero sense considering Johnny and Maddie are not even dating. This is clearly a family with boundary issues. Maddie’s dad suggests that Johnny use his sister’s wedding to tell Maddie how he feels. Oh yeah, because brides love having their weddings upstaged by other peoples’ declarations of love.

Speaking of Ginger’s wedding…I got so in the weeds on this. Ginger’s only bridesmaid is the wedding planner she met three weeks ago. Her fiancé’s only groomsman is Johnny. The wedding ceremony is populated by people from the town, including Maddie’s parents sitting in the front row of the church (again, guys: BOUNDARIES. You do not know this person). Ginger makes a remark at one point that most of their friends won’t be able to come since it’s short notice and over Christmas.  If all of this is the case, why even have a big wedding? Why not just go to city hall with a couple of witnesses? The fiancé clearly did not care about any of the wedding details; he only cares about surgery. Ginger was unable to make decisions without Maddie’s help, so she clearly did not have a vision for this day…SO WHY ARE WE BOTHERING WITH ANY OF THIS??? Plus it seemed like they didn’t even have a reception, since they seemed to be having their send off from the church. You need a wedding planner for just a small ceremony? None of this made sense.

Where was I? Oh yeah, Johnny and Maddie talk it out and decide to take a chance on love or something. He gives her his sketches and says he is giving up his acting career to move her. No “Fire’s Edge 3” guys, sorry. They kiss. Hooray, it’s over.

Is This Worth Watching?

Only if you are the kind of person who would attend a stranger’s wedding on Christmas because you’ve got nothing else going on.  “Christmas in Homestead” is a better choice in the “actor in a small town at Christmas” genre.