REVIEW: A December Bride on Hallmark Channel

In last night’s Hallmark Channel holiday-themed movie A December Bride, Layla O’Reilly’s (Jessica Lowndes from 90210) world was turned upside down 6 months earlier inadvertently by her friend Seth Murphy (Daniel Lissing from When Calls the Heart), who introduced Jack, Layla’s fiancée to Jessica, Layla’s cousin.

Seth only meant it for business purposes as Jessica needed financial help with her business and Jack is a financial investor. It was an innocent introduction, but it spelled doom for Jack and Layla, as Jack fell for Jessica and the rest is history, as they say…Jessica and Jack ended up getting married.

But since Jessica and Layla are cousins, Layla was obligated to attend the wedding – it was family after all. At least that is what Layla’s well-meaning, but meddlesome, Aunt Lorraine kept telling her.

Begrudgingly, Layla went to the wedding; but when her neighbor Cooper couldn’t accompany her as her date, she ended up going with…you guessed it…Seth. This arrangement was his way of making things up to her. But during the wedding, Seth got carried away and announced he and Layla were engaged.

Naturally, this brings about all kinds of misadventures between the O’Reilly and Murphy families with Layla and Seth dealing with concerned family members and ecstatic family members and everywhere in between.

They are brought together even more – not just because of the fake relationship – but because Seth hires Layla to decorate his home in order to make his boss’s wife, Mrs. Hardwick, very happy where her community program “Holiday Tour of Homes” is concerned. She wants Seth’s home to be featured in the special tour and he needs a decorator. Convenient that Layla is an aspiring interior decorator, right?

As in true Hallmark Channel holiday movie fashion, Seth and Layla become very good at the ruse of being engaged, bring out the best in each, learn a lot about each other and eventually fall in love for her. And, in the end, Layla becomes a December bride just like she always dreamed.