Christmas Wedding Planner

I knew before I started this movie that it would be a hard one to finish. I can't exactly put my finger on why but I just knew it was going to be terrible. I think it has something to do with the producers paying a lot of money for one of the periphery characters to be a well known actor which takes up all of the budget they have for making the movie of any actual quality. In this case they have Kelly Rutherford (Gossip Girl) as the demanding aunt and I feel like it left them with no money for a script writer or a set designer or other humans with any talent of any kind.

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I began watching and was not surprised to see that my intuition was right on the money. I only made it 30 minutes in before I had to shut it off. If it weren't for this blog I would never have turned it back on. It took me about a week and a half to get up the courage to dive in again. As soon as I did I remembered that Joey Fatone (yes, from N*Sync) has a cameo in this garbage gem. It just keeps getting worse. The dialogue is horrible and it feels like it wasn't written at all. Did they just put some strangers in a room and let them go at it? I can't be sure.

The main plot follows Kelsey, a wedding planner. Well, she is planning her cousin's wedding and it's her first foray into the business. For some reason she keeps sending text message updates to an unknown recipient and signing them "love you muchly" which makes me want to gag. She ends up running into a personal investigator, Connor, at her cousin's engagement party and he somehow convinces her to join him in looking into her cousin's fiancee. Most of the story follows these two as they try to spy on said fiancee. I think they're supposed to be falling in love but they almost have negative chemistry. It's not even zero chemistry, it's worse than that somehow.

Then you add in the unnecessary side characters and you have one heck of a mess. There are the three bridesmaids - Jealous, Bitter and Clumsy- who make one appearance and are never seen again; an extremely OCD baker with a fake french name and no french accent, and of course Joey Fatone's character, George, who owns an Italian restaurant.

As I painfully endured the rest of the movie there were a few twists and turns that were neither surprising nor entertaining. It didn't seem like it ever really hit a climax, it was so boring from start to finish. Again, were there even writers for this thing? They probably died of boredom writing this the story and just gave up. Even the ending, which has a pretty potentially jaw-dropping surprise just made me more confused than anything else. I mean, it really was so far fetched and ridiculous that I just gave a giant eye roll and felt nothing but relief that the movie was finally over!

I don't know if this move is THE worst Christmas rom-com I've ever seen but it is right there at the top of the list. I know most of these movies are filled with cheesy cliches, predictable plots and appalling actors but for the most part they seem to pull it off and find a way into our Christmas-loving hearts. Not this one. I recommend you skip right over it and move on to something like The Spirit of Christmas  or 12 Dates of Christmas.

I give Christmas Wedding Planner a two-star rating. It's not the absolute worst thing I have ever seen but I wouldn't recommend you waste 90 minutes on it.