Planning on Forever

The only hint of location is when a possible job transfer to Seattle is pondered, they say it isn't that far. Turns out the fictional town was filmed at beautiful Kelowna in British Columbia, about 200 miles NE of Vancouver. Beautiful location!

So Emily is a successful event planner and her sister is getting married. The date is most important, it is on an anniversary of when she met her intended. But they both have to go out of town on important business so they ask Emily to be a "stand in", evaluating food choices, decorations, cake, live entertainment, all those things.

She is thrust together with the Best Man, the stand-in for the groom, Liam, someone she had had a single date with a year earlier and it didn't go well. Liam owns a local bicycle shop and is very personable. We sense they might have a future if they give it a second chance.

But Emily is so good she is being offered a promotion and new job in Seattle which is almost six hours away. As she and Liam re-acquaint does she really want to leave town? With the help of her mom she tries to decide "What will make her most happy?"

My wife and I watched this movie streaming on Amazon Prime, it is a clean and appropriately entertaining movie. As most of these types of movies, somewhat predictable, but still fun to watch before bedtime.

The actors aren't bad, but the script is a little dull, dragging thru scenes at times & not making the most of it. For example, when Liam & Emma are tasting food with the number cards, they missed an opp to make that a fun scene. Instead it was boring. Sorry, that was my last scene.

Is that enough for a story? But they weren't high school sweethearts who split when one went off to college. No, their past is limited to a failed blind date. Still somehow Liam seems to know a lot about Emma. This is another story where the bride and groom completely leave town for the full six weeks leading up to the wedding so Emma and Liam have to "stand in". She keeps saying she is not a wedding planner even though she is a corporate event planner. She keeps telling her sister it will be "the wedding of your dreams." The writers sneak in a couple of "we are not together" disclaimers by the not-couple. But another deviation from the usual rom/com story about an employee is that the boss keeps telling her to stop working, not work faster. The story is relatively thin with the usual wedding planning things. It seems too good to be true that there are no disasters until... lets just say they stole one from the common Christmas pageant disaster. There is a very small side story where Emma's widowed mom meets someone.

I think Emily Tennant comes close to saving this. She is likeable with few faults. She and Alec Santos have quiet chemistry.

Every rom/com needs a conflict to throw a kink in the lead romance. This one revolves around the usual wrong assumptions but didn't seem that big a deal.

The acting, the plot, the writing brought nothing new to the table. Very low energy and boring same old same old plot involving pre-wedding activities while falling back in love with your ex. Absolutely nothing out of the ordinary, including second chance at love for the widowed mother. I can't put my finger on it but the mother really annoyed me. Always hovering in the background with advice at the ready. Followed all the clichés to a "T".