A Bride for Christmas

IMHO, the bet was a joke gone awry.

Given Aiden's (Andrew Walker) track record and Matt's (Peter Benson) sense of humor, Aiden proposing to anyone in a month was a strictly ludicrous idea....till oneupmanship kicked in.

Stars Arielle Kibbel and Andrew Walker, a better script and a strong supporting cast make all the difference here.

Yes, the premise is How to Lose a Runaway Bride. But eventually we get a payoff on both counts: mitigating factors on Jessie's broken engagements and a hilarious scene illustrating how competition X gambling runs amok.

Kudos to Kibbel and Walker for making Jessie and Aiden conflicted, and deeper than the shrill mess and elevated jerk lesser actors would have delivered.

Their all-important chemistry was excellent and believable, start to finish.

On a lesser note, I've wondered if Hallmark's preference for female leads with dated, unflattering hair was about making them look only so good, as opposed to poor styling. Here, Kibbel's look was consistently on the wrong side of the tousled versus messy divide.