Recap: A Christmas Wedding Date (2012)

This poster tells you everything you need to know about this movie.

We open with Rebecca, who’s an executive living in the big city. Also, she brushes her hair exactly 100 times and I don’t know if anyone’s ever done that since Now & Then, but instead of telling me that she’s a stickler for rules, it just tells me that Rebecca doesn’t care about split ends. She’s just closed a big deal – bank merger of some kind – and totally thinks she’s getting a promotion.

Also, Marla Sokoloff was either super early into her real-life pregnancy or post-baby, because her skin is crazy glowy and beautiful in the whole movie. Star of the movie: Marla’s skin.

Getting back into it now, Rebecca gets fired by some executive cheeseball right before Christmas and she is understandably upset. She then gets a call from a hometown friend that’s getting married…on Christmas Eve. These people are assholes. Hometown BFF, Alison, is wondering why Becca hasn’t RSVP’d to her terrible wedding. Becca hems and haws, but then decides to fly home. This is completely rational for someone that just lost their job with zero incoming prospects.

So, Becca gets into a taxi with George Wendt. She later calls him Mr. Destiny but that’s gross, so he’s just going to be Norm henceworth. Norm is a mysterious taxi driver that wears Hawaiian shirts and talks to her about fate. She hits her head on the window, and this is some red herring because it never really comes up again? So anyway, I guess he realizes Becca has lost her happiness or some shit like that, so he gives her a sparkly star ornament that twinkles right into the camera! She’s like, okay great thanks grandpa, and then gets dropped off at her house.

Quick back story: her mom is  a widowed diner owner, and it’s revealed that Becca hasn’t been home since her dad died a few years back. That’s pretty harsh to take it out on the mom, no? Becca is rude to her mom, and goes up to her old bedroom, which was left in the same condition the day she peaced out. She sees an old picture of her high school boyfriend, Chad. Name-wise, Becca and Chad are perfect for one another.

Becca heads off to the 1 o’clock Christmas Eve wedding. Along the way, she yells at a girl scout for offering her cookies, because she doesn’t want to be fat. This movie has serious issues with women and their eating habits, just FYI. Anyway, Becca’s dressed like it’s a winter wedding, but she’s in Los Angeles, so everyone’s in breezy dresses and summertime outfits. Okay. We’re introduced to more pointless characters: a bridesmaid that used to be fat (“Big Jenny, remember?!”) and a bitchy maid of honour, Molly, whose sole purpose seems to be to ruin Becca’s life while she’s in town. There’s never a concrete reason as to why she’s outright malicious, but just that she’s a Mean Girl.

The wedding goes on and wacky things happen: wedding singers are bad, best man forgets the ring, etc. Hey, now we get to meet Chad! Now, I find Chris Carmack generally charming and likable, but he can’t do much with the awful writing of his character here. He sneaks up behind Becca and starts singing at her back during the cocktail hour, and this is so creepy to me and it is just a REOCCURING THING throughout the movie. He tells her it’s been “10 years, 4 months, and 3 days” since they’ve last seen one another and thaaaaat is where you’d be seeing a me-shaped hole in the wall me because NOPE. He then asks her to take a shot on him again, and she’s like, but I literally haven’t spoken to you in 10 years? Totally reasonable, Becca.

Exposition time: after graduation, she went to NYC for her career and he went to Paris for cooking school (of course). It’s not mentioned until later, but Becca is under the belief that Chad slept with Molly (Mean Girl) after she left town, and feels permanently betrayed by this…10 years later.

Molly continues her tirade of ruining Becca’s day by kissing Chad, and then literally making her maid of honour speech ALL about Becca. Humiliated and defeated, Becca runs home crying, and falls asleep, ready to fly the fuck home the next day. She cries over a montage of THE FIRST 30 MINUTES OF THE MOVIE, INCLUDING A SCENE OF HER CRYING PREVIOUSLY.

She wakes up the next morning, determined to leave this shitty town and its shitty townies behind. Main problem: IT’S STILL CHRISTMAS EVE, ALL OVER AGAIN! So, a female Groundhog Day (P.S. It was done better in 12 Dates of Christmas with Amy Smart and Mark-Paul Gosselaar!). Becca runs outside, and encounters Norm’s reflection in a storefront window and realizes he’s trapping her in a Christmas Eve nightmare to learn some awful life lessons.

She ends up doing this day six more times, so let’s break it down:

Christmas Eve #2: She literally has zero reaction to anything anyone does, just stares open-mouthed at everything. She leaves before the humiliation of Molly’s speech, and just goes to bed, convinced it’s a nightmare.

Christmas Eve #3: She’s bitchy to Molly before the Mean Girl can even take a breath, takes shots with the groomsmen, and dances on the bar at the reception. She’s a total party girl, and after she dances (innocently) with a sloppy groomsman, Chad has the NERVE to demand, “What happened to the Rebecca I fell in love with?” You don’t own her, Chad! It was 10 years ago, bro. She gets arrested, I have no idea why.

Christmas Eve #4: This time, she spends the day bonding with her mom, and then buys a Porsche with her company credit card. Why would they not have taken this away from her? Can you even buy a car on a credit card? Also, her new vanity plate is I ♥ ME, so this is just completely unrealistic. She would’ve spent the whole morning doing paperwork! Maybe she rented it. I’m asking too many questions of this movie already. She dresses up fancy for wedding, and then falls asleep to some old Christmas movie. Norm pops up in the television, and here’s where I lost my shit. He tells her she needs to repair all her relationships, so even though she just repaired the broken relationship with her own mother, Norm invalidates this mother-daughter relationship by trumping it with romantic love. Fuck you, Norm. Take your shit elsewhere.

Christmas Eve #5: Becca meets up with the Alison, the bride, before her own wedding at her mom’s diner and is eating everything she wants, because life’s too short. The friend is like, “ew, I don’t want to be fat,” and I hate this movie. Becca finds out that Chad never slept with Molly after she left for NYC, so the betrayal? Never happened. Sorry, but this couldn’t have been cleared up with one angry email or phone call BACK IN THE DAY?

Christmas Eve #6: Becca’s got a purpose! She spends the entire day learning how to skate in the local arena, getting to know the arena staff, and then learns how to bake approximately 13 different cakes with her mom. All before the wedding. It should be noted now, I guess, that everytime she goes to the wedding, she improves it slightly by fixing the little mistakes. She’s essentially creating the fairytale wedding for Alison and her groom, removing all the incredibly real moments, that you laugh about years later with your spouse, from their day.

Christmas Eve #7: THIS IS IT. She affronts Chad at the arena at like, 7 in the morning, where he skates. She talks to the arena dude about his entire life, even though he’s allegedly never met her before. Chad’s intrigued by this Becca, naturally. Then there’s a really, really long skating montage. They go to the wedding, everything goes off without a hitch because Becca’s now a pro at taking the magic out of weddings. She asks Chad to come outside on the patio, where she’s somehow made a delicious dinner for them both. WHAT. She had NO TIME to do this, and they’re just about to eat the meal at the reception! You’re all idiots! He’s super impressed with her though, and I hate everyone. I guess she invited her mom to the reception because she shows up out of nowhere? Becca makes a surprise speech to the bride and groom, and her gift to them…is a song. She doesn’t sing it (thank god), but the DJ plays it and everyone starts slow dancing. SHE NEVER REPAIRS THE RELATIONSHIP WITH HER MOM ONCE ON DAY #7. DOESN’T EVEN TALK TO HER REALLY AT ALL, AND YET NORM PUTS HIS SHITTY STAMP OF APPROVAL ON THIS LIFE LESSON.

But for some reason, Becca goes home and there’s a fucking two-minute long flashback OF THE MOVIE WE’RE STILL WATCHING. She wakes up, thinking it’s still Christmas Eve, and accuses Norm’s star ornament of being shiny when she feels so blue. But when she goes downstairs, Chad has let himself into her kitchen (RUN AWAY BECCA) and is making bacon in a crisp button-down shirt.

AND THEN HE PROPOSES!!!!

Becca, homie spent approximately half a day with you after 10 years of silence and wants you to stay in California with him forever. Your life is literally in danger. But Becca’s cool about this and says yes, and then Norm shows up in his fucking magical taxi and she gives him the ornament so he can ruin someone else’s life and then HIS TAXI DISAPPEARS INTO THIN AIR!

THE END

Just watch 12 Dates of Christmas instead.

Top IMDb Comment:

Marla Sokoloff’s Rebecca is generally mean, her would-be boyfriend is a handsome dishrag, and the supporting cast are all caricatures.