Chabert Watch! The Wedding Veil Journey (2023)

the sixth of six of these.  I deserve a cookie for finishing.

Watched:  03/18/2025

Format:  Hallmark

Viewing:  First

Director:  Ron Oliver

heads-up:  If you're here for 100% Chabert content, I am going to alert you now, Lacey Chabert is a supporting character/ Executive Producer on this movie, and not the star.  But watching the Chabert filmography will mean sometimes she is not the lead.  I know.  I can't believe it either.

Job:  Art and Rarities Auction House Exec

new skill:  empathy for other humans

Man: Victor Webster

Job of Man:  Restaurateur and Chef

Goes to/ Returns to:  Goes to Greece

Event:  None, really

Food:  Greek cuisine

First, I finally figured out where I knew Alison Sweeney from - she was on Days of Our Lives when that was the go-to soap opera to watch in the 1990's thanks to Sweeney's character, Sami (who was batshit) and Deidre Hall's Marlena was possessed by a demon.  Weird, wild stuff.

On to the show:

With our couple established in the third Wedding Veil installment, we get the direct sequel here in the 6th and (mercifully) final installment, entitled The Wedding Veil Journey (2023).  

In this movie Alison Sweeney and Man are realizing their schedules as an art auctioneer and restaurateur are incompatible, and they never see each other.  In fact, they never managed a honeymoon in what we're told is three years later, meaning the movies are actually supposed to span something like 6+ years.  

Sweeney and Man head off for Greece, but their plan is bad.  They will stay only one night in a hotel and then wing it from there.  Because of flight delays, they wind up arriving late, have nowhere to stay, and wind up in a struggling but lovely resort that seems honestly super nice.  And clearly the production had the run of the place, likely due to COVID.

We meet Kid, a roughly 11 year old street urchin who is a shockingly good actor for a kid in a Hallmark movie.  He's selling sketches, and shaking our leads down.  The other guests are UKMan and his Grandma while the resort's hosts are Cute Greek Girl (CGG) and Doofy Brother.

I'm gonna pause here, because Grandma initially looks like she's *with* UKMan, and I realized she was Jane Asher, who has been in UK media since the 1950's (The Quartermass Experiment) and was kind of an It Girl back when Vincent Price co-starred with her in Masque of the Read Death.  She was in Alfie with Michael Caine, too.  Mostly, though, she was famously romantically tied up with Paul McCartney during crucial years for The Beatles, so you do see her name here and there.  So, yeah, Hallmark kinda punched over their weight-class with this casting. But whether the math works out or not, she does not look old enough to be UKMan's grandmother.

This one is kind of odd as it really is not as clunky as 90% of Hallmark movies.  Everyone is *fine*, including the ancillary romance between UKMan and CGG.  Even if it does seem kind of odd that what Grandma wants is to magically ensnare her grandson into marrying a young woman he just met.  (It kind of plays like Grandma's motivation is less about her grandson finding romance, and more that she just wants to move to Greece and this will make it happen.  Which, props, Jane Asher.)  

The primary stories are:

• Sweeney finds a young orphan who is a gifted artist and tries to help him, but stumbles over the school master who is literally caring for him
• Man rightfully hates the cooking at the restaurant at the place where they're staying, so he sneaks in at night and replaces the dishes with his own versions
• Friends (Chabert, Reeser) just f'ing show up on these people's long-delayed honeymoon

Mostly, the focus is the orphan storyline, and after 5 movies of Sweeney saying "no kids for me", it's pretty telegraphed that this kid is going home with her.  But they really milk it and it's not the worst thing.  Sweeney is an a-ok actor, has buyable energy with Man, and the kid is honestly as good as any kid actor.  And I appreciate that Man seems to know how to build a relationship with the kid on his own.

I think the oddest thing about this movie is that it defies Hallmark's usual pattern of eschewing unpleasant thoughts.  They acknowledge that getting hustled as a tourist is real, suggest maybe Sweeney is playing the Touristing Savior card badly, that memory-loss happens for older people (there's a throw-away storyline about Orphan wanting to see an uncle), and it sucks to be married to someone you never see.  Man even basically threatens to kick someone's ass for taking a nasty tone with Sweeney.  It's wild!  And the movie lands on a happy ending for (almost) everyone in less than 90 minutes.  YMMV on whether this movie is actually good, but in Hallmark terms, it's about as much as one could hope for.

the three cursed owners of the veil

I will be honest and say two things.

1)  This idea of entertaining Randy by watching every Lacey Chabert movie is not the walk in the park I assumed it would be.  She's a lovely actor and all, and I'm not tired of Chabert herself, but I think I've watched 20+ Hallmark movies this year and it's not even April.  It's a lot.  I may be moving on to non-Hallmark Chabert for a while.  Maybe that says something nice about Chabert that its a whole network I'm tired of, but I'm okay with seeing her in some 00's-era mid-budget stuff instead of falling for dopey dudes.

2)  Six movies in the same series, in a genre that was not my cup of tea, was work to watch.  Putting this 6th movie on was *homework*.  Look, most of the talent in these movies is fine-to-good at doing their thing.  I can see how this appeals to not-me, even if the Reddit discussion (I always check out the Reddit discussion) is unhinged.  For me, the 5-movie The Crossword Mysteries flicks were a breeze as they were basically mystery shows, which I'm better at digesting.

Here, we're in a Wedding Veil Universe and I'm not sure watching an old piece of hoodoo'd lace make people get married is that exciting by the third installment, let alone the sixth.  This is not something the people of Reddit believe, but I've also seen AITA, so maybe Redditors are not the people we should turn to.  

What I do get is that there's something there with interconnected movies about three best pals, none of whom is the annoying one - but they're all different, going through life's milestones.  But given Hallmark's focus, after wedding and kids, where do you go?  You have set up three characters and their spouses and lives.  Even promotions.  It seems like you could keep going.  But do you want to burden yourself with having to lug this veil around, narratively?  Do you get into divorces?   Life is not all victories.  So, seriously... I don't know where you go next.  Which is why I'm guessing we're in 2025 and they haven't made more of these.