Wedding Planner Mystery

Lately the Hallmark Channel has been having all kinds of amateur female detective heroes in their films. It's all in the grand tradition of that most famous and successful amateur sleuth of the female gender Miss Jane Marple.

Erica Durance is our detective here and as you see by the title she's a wedding planner. Right now she's planning her rich friend Chelan Simmons's wedding. But there are a lot of complications like a feud between her father and his former business partner, both of whom are under investigation. And then there's the death of a cousin of Simmons in a car crash where the car was tampered with.

While all this is going on Durance is also being courted by reporter Andrew Walker and lawyer Brandon Beemer. Who will she choose?

As it turns out that murder was only part of a greater scheme hatched by members of the cast. That's what Durance has to foil to get this wedding back on track.

Wedding Planner Mystery was a pleasant enough mystery with some good performances by the ensemble. Hallmark with its PG programming is providing some good entertainment with these films.

This movie had a great cast. I liked most of the actors in their respective roles but the script was terrible. The situations were contrived. Most of the conclusion that the main character drew were based on faulty reasoning. The decisions they made to solve problems or get out of dangerous situations were always based on bad decision making. I found myself constantly saying aloud: "No one would do that." More than once, someone was accused of a crime based on ridiculous logic. This was a Murder Mystery; a formula that calls for a certain amount of logic and deduction. I found both sorely missing. I really liked Erica Durance in the lead. I really hated the lines they obviously forced her to say. As Hallmark Movies go this was the most disappointing one I have ever watch. Disappointing because it had all the elements to be enjoyable. If, when you suspend belief while watching this, you also suspend logic and reasoning, you may still be able to enjoy this movie.

Erica Durance plays wedding planner Carnegie Kincaid. She seems to be cool under pressure, but that will really be tested as she has two weddings in the same wealthy family within two weeks. A big strain is placed on the festivities and the planning as one of the cousins is murdered during the reception of the first wedding. Will Carnegie be able to keep the account that her business so desperately needs and will she be able to remove herself from the suspicion of Detective Bordon. Will she be able to keep the plucky investigative reporter Aaron Gold at bay...and off the front page? And who is this handsome lawyer Holt Walker of the amazing eyes, who seems to be trying to seduce Carnegie?

Being from Seattle I did enjoy the houseboat setting and I like how skilled the wedding planner is and how persistent the reporter is. The mystery was decent and the cast was really good. I think mystery fans will enjoy this one.

This mystery was clean and fun. Of course you figure out early on who is going to fall in love, but there are enough complications in the plot to keep you guessing how long it will take for that to happen. In the meantime, you can stay occupied with wondering if the wedding will ever happen and which characters are good and which are evil, and who the murderer is. No, it's not Mary Higgins Clark. It's Hallmark, and it's fun. James Welch Henderson, Arkansas 3/2/2021

Hallmark has very up positive movies and you almost always walk away with a smile. The main character in Wedding Planner Mysteries was good but the parts of script was so unbelievably contrary to the characters personality and intelligence. She kept making decisions that were so common sense and yet she went the other way. There were many comments that should have been made to the police, that she kept secret for no real reason, other than to make her look guilty. She was obviously hostile towards the Detective for no real reason. It was like the whole story line was being placed on her part rather than setting the interaction across the cast.