A Bride for Christmas

What a wonderful and pleasant surprise! My daughter and I watched this movie on and we both loved it - we taped it and left it on so I could watch it again. Jessie reminded me of Jennifer Lawrence - she was that good - all of the actors could transfer easily over to the "big screen"! I never saw any of them before in anything but will make a point to follow their career from now on - It was like an old Doris Day/Cary Grant movie... Loved... Loved... Loved it! I'm trying to find where Jessie got the dress that she wore to the art gallery :-) Any ideas on who made some of her clothes would be greatly appreciated... wanted to see much more- any chance a sequel is in the works?

This romantic holiday flick stars Arielle Kebbel (Midnight Texas) and Andrew W. Walker (numerous Christmas films) as the love interests Jessie and Aiden.

Jessie has been engaged three times and just about given up on love and all that it entails. Aiden is the static bachelor whose friends make a bet with him that he can't be engaged by Christmas only four weeks away.

Lead character meet and banter, eventually get to know one another and fall in love. Then Jessie learns of the bet.. Will it be happily ever after or a lonely new year's eve & Christmas for the duo?

Cute movie, worth a watch!

Why does Hallmark make 30 new Christmas movies a year? It is because Great Movies like this led the way. The movie has a great cast (Arielle Kebbel and Andrew Walker in the leads), it is very funny, and it has it's touching moments. Kimberly Sustad played a great supporting role as the sister (she starred in Nine Lives of Christmas) and Peter Benson made for some of the funniest moments (he plays the detective in Aurora Teagarten). I recognized the dad (Eric Keenleyside) from roles in many of the Hallmark movies. The cast looked like a current day Hallmark movie with everyone 6 years younger. Sage Brocklebrand was also in the movie (he played McNabb in Psych).

My wife and I have not seen every made-for-TV Hallmark movie, but we have seen several dozen. I can't remember a better Hallmark movie than A Bride for Christmas.

This movie has a lot of strengths. It has lead characters Jessie (played by Arielle Kebbel) and Aiden (Andrew Walker) who are unusually attractive and likable. Indeed, Andrew Walker has a striking resemblance to a young Tom Cruise. The acting by Kebbel and Walker, and by all the supporting actors, is excellent. The dialog is reasonably realistic. The camera work is quite good and adds interest. The musical score is also very good, effectively enhancing some of the scenes.

The plot is predictable (as in all Hallmark movies) and we've seen certain plot elements before in several well known rom-coms (The Runaway Bride, 10 Ways to Lose Your Lover). But given those drawbacks,the movie does an excellent job of telling its story. The inevitable "change of heart" on the part of Jessie and Aiden proceeds at a slow and realistic pace and the actors convince us that there is romantic chemistry between the two lead characters. The lead and supporting characters all behave in realistic and believable ways.

While watching A Bride for Christmas, my wife and I repeatedly said to each other "This movie is good!" We thoroughly enjoyed it and will watch it again.

A BRIDE FOR Christmas is a well-made Hallmark TV movie that debuted in December of 2012. Its leads, Andrew Walker and Arielle Kebbel, are two fine, handsome young actors. The story has some good jokes, fine pictures and some good supporting actors -- particularly by Duffy, a handsome and energetic dog. Yet at its heart is a creepy, stalker plot that made me shake my head.

Mr. Walker is a successful man whose friends are all married. He alone remains committed to a life of casual relationships, but agrees to a bet that he can get a woman to accept his proposal by Christmas. He chooses Ms. Kebbel, a woman who has walked out on three fiancés, including one at the altar, as his subject. Then he stalks her.

Along the way they fall in love in a charming fashion, but that initial set-up, in which he proposes to make a girl fall in love with him with no thought of the consequences is disquieting. Romantic comedies have a long tradition of such attitudes from the way Jimmy Stewart treats Margaret Sullavan in THE SHOP AROUND THE CORNER to just about every Rock Hudson-Doris Day movie. In this movie careful writing deals with the issues I felt but do not quite dispose of them. I wound up enjoying it but not awarding it the superior rating I would have without that issue.