Jingle Bell Bride

This movie had a beautiful message: Life is too precious to race through. It is a lesson that I am learning.

The overall story is about a wedding planner, who in the pursuit of creating the perfect wedding for her client, travels to a remote Alaska town to procure unique "Jingle bell flowers". (One pet peeve: the flower is a fuschia not a jingle bell flower. I don't know why the names have to be changed. Fuschia is interesting all by itself.) Our wedding planner, Jessica, gets stuck in town for their Jingle Bell Flower Festival...even getting drawn to be crowned the Jingle Bell Princess for the events. There she is stressing about her most important client of her career but due to poor cell phone coverage and circumstances has to slow down and enjoy life a little...which gets her thinking about her sister and her niece. Meanwhile a snake at work, named Rebecca, does everything she can to steal her client while she is gone. In Alaska she meets an amazing man named Matt, who made sacrifices to move back to Alaska to help his aunt on the flower farm when her husband passed away. He takes it upon himself to help Jessica slow down a little and enjoy Alaska while she is there.

The Alaskan farm house was gorgeous inside and out. I hated that they had to have the selfish character Rebecca...I think she was an unnecessary mean bit in an otherwise sweet holiday romance.

I am sad that New York and the tiny town in Alaska are so far away... Sweet film to recommend for the holidays.

So, this is my 3rd Hallmark Christmas movie of the 2020 season. It is at the top of my list thus far. The acting was good. Julie Gonzalo was great; I tend to like her Hallmark (or Hallmark like) films. The chemistry between the two leads was pretty good as well. I liked the cookies scenes, for example. The support cast too did a good job. I thought the aunt (BJ Harrison) had a good performance. The storyline/plot was what I expected from a Hallmark film. So, no surprises there. I did find the stopping at the Moose crossing to be a bit odd. We have these where I grew up; you did not stop, but slowed down and paid attention for moose, if you saw one then you stopped. Overall, it was a good start to the 2020 Christmas movie season by Hallmark.

The plot was decent. I really wanted to love the movie since the leads were gorgeous and I thought the story was going somewhere. The dilemma of the special flowers for a high profile wedding made sense. The friction at the workplace was expected. The setting was beautiful. But there was little chemistry between the leads. It felt awkward. The expected tension was not significant to keep a viewer engaged. I expected more from the ending. It simply fell flat.

A fair story full of the usual Hallmark tropes including small town Christmas festivals, job pressures and being trapped with a deadline. They usually work but seem a bit forced here. I really wonder if the nature of the relationship caused the production to be a bit careful. It also doesn't help that the two leads lack romantic chemistry. Still, its worth a watch.

The characters are lovely. I don't like such backstabbing and negativity in my hallmark shows- no one should be ready to tear down someone else for a job. It wasn't needed; we already had the time aspect. That was a poor choice. That kind of storytelling is for the other networks. Keep hallmark happy and special. I like to live in my hallmark bubble.