After the success of the original Wedding Veil trilogy, Hallmark ordered another trilogy to make it a series. Once again, we’ll follow our original heroines – Avery (Lacey Chabert), Emma (Autumn Reeser) and Tracy (Alison Sweeney) as they navigate married life. And the veil comes along as well to continue working its magic on some brand new couples.
Once again, we start with Avery and the next chapter of her life.
When the world outside’s too much to take/that all ends when I’m SPOILERS!
We get a glimpse at how married life is treating Avery and her husband Peter Hastings (Kevin McGarry). He wakes her up with a rose and they are pretty sweet together. They have just bought a new house which is historical, something right up their alley. But it has some issues so his mom has recommended a contractor to look it over and find what needs to be fixed.
But first Avery has a girls’ weekend with Emma and Tracy planned. Tracy has also brought the veil while Emma came with Claudia’s christening gown, the one she and Paolo found in Arianna’s trunk. These items are for an exhibit on lace that Avery is doing at the museum. Emma jokes that maybe they should start passing around the christening gown but Tracy says kids are not in her future.
They may be in Avery’s future though. She says she got a positive test a few months ago but it turned out to be false. However, she’s late and another home pregnancy test came out positive. But she’s waiting for her doctor to confirm before she tells Peter so he doesn’t get his hopes dashed again. She swears her friends to secrecy before they leave again.
Avery and Peter meet Sam (Doron Bell), the contractor, and it turns out that their house is going to need lots of work. Peter seems to be reconsidering their purchase (and did they not get a report from an engineer before buying it?) while Avery remains optimistic that they can make their house their home. They also have the help of Peter’s mom Grace (Karen Kruper), who was an interior designer before she married Peter’s dad so she is excited to help.
Grace and Avery go shopping together to look at couches. While there, Avery asks Grace to hold the veil for her while she takes a call. Grace spots a man by the door and wants to leave, confusing Avery. She explains the man was her former fiancé, the man she was going to marry before Peter’s father, Daniel. But he has spotted him and comes up to say hi. Clark (Barry Levy) and Grace seem to hit it off and Avery can’t help but notice that she’s holding the veil.
Avery makes it to work and adds the veil to her exhibit. Lucy (Fiona Vroom) stops in to see her. They both reveal that Sondra from the first movie has gotten a new job and moved on to another museum. And even though Avery became a full curator in the first movie, it seems the board decided to hire someone else to run the museum – though she doesn’t seem to mind that. She hasn’t met the new director but Lucy is clearly not a fan as she heads back to her work.
Meanwhile, Avery tries to make an appointment with her doctor but he is out of town. So it looks like she will need to wait another week to find out if she’s pregnant or not.
Avery then meets her new boss, Mason Sylvester (Oliver Rice), and it’s clear that their visions for the center clash. He’s more focused on modern art while she’s more classical. And he’s not a fan of the veil or the lace exhibit, saying the portrait of Arianna is old hat now. Avery tries to stand up for it but knows the decision is ultimately up to him. And he makes it clear that he doesn’t care that her husband is a board member.
(Later it is revealed that Mason insisted on complete creative control so the Board can’t interfere in the exhibits he selects for the museum, which seems like a really stupid decision on behalf of the board).
(Of course, I’m probably biased. I really don’t like modern art so the fact Mason is all about it makes me like him even less).
Tracy also knows Mason and is not a fan so she warns Avery to be careful. She and Emma ask Avery if she’s gotten confirmation about her pregnancy. Avery says it will happen soon.
Don’t worry they aren’t going to make us wait the entire movie to find out the answer – Avery is pregnant! Yay!
Now she just has to tell Peter. But she wants to do it in a very special way. Avery decides to get a reservation at their favorite restaurant and visits Mario (Marco Soriano) to set it up. Since she doesn’t want anyone to know about the pregnancy just yet, she lies that she and Peter have made an important car purchase and want to celebrate.
That was really the best lie you could come up with, Avery?
We then start a series of unfortunate events where all of Avery’s attempts to tell Peter she is pregnant keep getting ruined. Her dinner gets pushed back so she and Peter can go to dinner with Grace and Clarke. Peter is definitely not cool with his mother dating again. At all. Then a pipe bursts in the house and so they have to spend the night in a hotel. Avery books them the honeymoon suite and is prepared to tell him the news but Peter is too tired from dealing from the burst pipe. He just ends up falling asleep on her.
I don’t know who I feel for more in this scene – Avery or Peter.
Meanwhile, Grace and Carter keep getting closer but this mostly happens off screen. So just know that they are falling in love and Peter is not thrilled by it. It will become important later.
Peter is also stressed about a proposal to bring an art program to Boston schools. His day to present keeps getting pushed back and he works to make sure it is powerful and convincing, ultimately deciding to bring some of the students already benefitting from the program to speak before the board.
House renovations are still underway. Avery finds a room that she feels is perfect for the nursery and starts spending time in it, daydreaming of what it will be. Sam notices it and tells Grace that Avery really likes that room. Grace starts to put things together.
Avery is also frustrated by Mason, who is determined to get rid of the more romantic and classical paintings and replace them with Modern Art. He also drinks a rather strong coffee drink that turns Avery’s stomach thanks to morning sickness. She does her best to get away from him while still making it clear that she prefers the paintings he wants to do away with.
So Emma and Tracy pay a visit to Boston to help her. Mason seems surprised to see that Avery knows Tracy and it’s clear he’s a little afraid of her. But it doesn’t stop him from being rather condescending to all three of them when they try to praise the veil and he realizes they all have worn it. I’m not sure pointing out that Emma married into the family that made it would’ve made it better but maybe he would’ve felt that to be rude and kept his opinions to himself.
Thinking it over, I finally figured out what bothers me the most about him. He mocks them for having an emotional connection to the veil and to the portrait. Yes, maybe it does prevent them – especially Avery – from being more objective. But art is supposed to evoke an emotional connection in us. He needs to find a good balance between pieces that are thought-provoking and creating an emotional response.
Anyway, Emma and Tracy cheer Avery up before leaving – even if they did enjoy teasing her about her sudden love of pineapple pizza. She did also have to lie to Mario that the big news she wanted to tell Peter was that they were getting a new SUV. Mario surprisingly buys it despite how obvious it is that she is clearly lying.
Peter grows more and more frustrated by the renovations and when he loses his cool one day, Avery flees the house tears. He chases after her and she finally tells him that she is pregnant. At first he is surprised and then overjoyed. They celebrate in their rather nice backyard before realizing that everything will work out.
Things at home get better and Sam stops running into issues. Everything starts to fall in place just as things seem to get worse at work for Avery. Mason has made a deal to send Portrait of a Bride to Europe in exchange for a modern art piece called Traffic, by an artist that is considered “hot.” We never see the painting but it’s clear from Avery’s face that she’s not a fan though she tries to be diplomatic. Mason pretty much tells her they need to chase the next “big” thing and not be so romantic.
So Avery vents to her friends, talking about her pregnancy as well – which she has been keeping from Mason because frankly, she doesn’t have to tell him anything. But he overhears and she finally unloads on him, saying that being a romantic is not a bad thing and that sometimes a museum needs balance. She then storms off to be sick.
Meanwhile, Grace starts to get scared and gently breaks things off with Clarke. She claims she isn’t as ready to move on as she thought and she believes Peter and Avery need her more. They can just be friends.
Peter’s proposal goes well and he just needs to wait for approval. He and Avery relax as they watch the news. Sam comments on how much he loves the reporter, Fred Carruthers (Kevin Mundy). Fred is a big fan of history and often advocates for preserving it. Sam apparently knows Fred and Avery asks for his contact information as she gets an idea.
Fred comes down and films a piece on the lace exhibit as well as Portrait of a Bride. Avery mentions that the people of Boston won’t be able to see the painting much longer since it will be on its way to another museum. Mason watches and I’m not sure if he’s impressed by her determination or annoyed by her antics.
But it works! Their gala is sold out as people come to see the painting and the exhibit. It seems the solution wasn’t really shaking things up and turning to modern art. They just needed to, you know, market their exhibits and do publicity. I know the board ceded total creative control to Mason but certainly they could use this to give him some pointers on how to do the rest of his job.
(Mason does also say that the painting can stay. Hurray!)
After the gala, Peter and Avery tell Grace about the pregnancy. She is over the moon to become a grandmother. Peter also tells her that she should continue to see Clarke, that she deserves to be happy as well and that he knows her moving on doesn’t mean she loved his father any less. It seems to be just what she needs to hear as Avery and Peter look forward to building their family in their beautiful house.
So cut to some months later…
Grace marries Clarke while wearing the veil! Avery and Peter are their witnesses. And of course, Emma and Tracy are there too. They are thrilled that the veil brought another couple together.
Avery then brings her friends up to see their godson, little Daniel. Emma and Tracy are over the moon and Emma hopes she has a child with Paolo soon. Tracy, though, is happy to stay childfree. So instead, her friends point out that she hasn’t taken a honeymoon yet and she says she and Nick will do it when they have more time.
That will become important later.
And so our friends toast to the veil as Avery promises to return the christening gown to Emma. The next story will be hers and I guess we’ll see if she’ll need to use the gown as well.
The movie ends with Avery and Peter being interviewed by someone off screen. She recaps the events of the first movie and they end with a kiss. It’s a sweet moment but I’m not sure why it was included here and not in the beginning to serve as a recap of sorts.
*****
So that was The Wedding Veil Expectations!
This was cute though I think a little too busy. I’m not sure we needed all those plots and I think that made it suffer a bit. Grace and Clark hardly got any real development and I think showing them as well as Peter’s issues would’ve been a bit more entertaining than all the missed opportunities for Avery to tell Peter that they’re going to be parents. While making a grand reveal is in character for Avery, it probably could’ve been done sooner and then let everything else stand as is.
Also does anyone still use the clapper? I didn’t mention this but early in the movie, we see Avery and Peter get ready for bed. They get into bed and clap together to turn off their lights. Later in the movie, they get into bed again but they are out of sync with their clapping, resulting in the lights going off and then coming on again. It’s a too-on-the-nose metaphor for the tension between them that probably wasn’t very necessary in the end.
But Chabert and McGarry continued to have an easy chemistry between them. They were believable as a married couple who have hit a rough patch but come out stronger for it. I wish we got more of Lucy in this movie but I guess it was busy enough.
So it looks like the veil will be bringing even more couples together in this series! And maybe there’s at least one more pregnancy in the future? Though I do like the idea of Tracy and Nick staying childfree and showing that is a valid option. We don’t see that too often in these types of movies.
Next time: Emma and Paolo step back into the spotlight as distance may come between them. Uh oh.
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