When I saw that Brooke D'Orsay was the star, I was excited because I thought she was a powerful character in Royal Pains. And as the movie started out, it looked like this would be another chance to see a wonderful woman similar to Paige from Royal Pains. But the movie was boring. Most of it was about wedding planning. There was an attempt to set up a daughter-in-law/mother-in-law conflict. But that conflict was muddled. There are other details I didn't like, but expanding on them gives away too much. In some ways this was not your typical Hallmark movie. There were no competing love interests and the leads started out in love (having had a two year uninterrupted relationship). The male lead was a virtual non-entity. I don't blame D'Orsay for the shortcomings because I think she did the best she could with the script.

Hallmark Movies used to to be high quality, believe it or not, presented every so often as the Hallmark Hall of Fame. Increasingly over the past 7 years, they have been churning out predictable nonsense on an assembly line in a Canadian factory. It's gotten so bad that during the months-long Christmas SEASON (a true, 3 month season) that only one or two movies are actually worth watching. This movie is one of the earlier failures. Most movies around 2013 or before were actually funny and watchable. This one is a bizarre mash of incoherent plotlines, coupled with nearly inaudible dialogue. And why is it inaudible? The SOUNDTRACK. It's like a "circus waltz" that pops up at inappropriate times and then goes away just as suddenly. It's like someone not watching the film starts and stops the music by putting records on and playing with the tonearm. The music is usually inappropriate to what's going on in the movie. And it is LOUD. Like, REALLY LOUD. It's sweeping orchestral music, so loud you can't hear the conversations and must used closed captioning, and......it's blaring while a couple is talking over a cup of coffee at the kitchen table.

Leave it to Hallmark to totally sweeten down a great plot. A wealthy woman practically conspires with her secretary to prevent the former's son from marrying a girl she feels to be totally unsuitable for him.

Marilu Henner steals the show as the conniving mother with a cold veneer. I thought they would have made her as cruel as a Bette Davis could be.

Our bride-to-be, a lovely girl, had always planned with her mother what type of wedding she would have down to every last detail. With her mother dying, the girl still wants it the way she planned and her future mother-in-law use that to her advantage to plan everything instead, especially when the marriage has to be moved up as the groom has accepted a high job in an extremely prestigious law-firm.

There's the girl's widowed dad with his new girlfriend, reading the letter that her mother sent. There is the assistant as vicious as ever.

Henner does a total double-take when she sees she is overwhelmed. The secretary, who is fired, plans one last act of revenge. Remember, this is Hallmark, so all must end with a sugary taste.