Quartile rating: 7/10 · 1 rating
With the wedding of her younger sister fast approaching, Kat Ellis faces the undesirable prospect of traveling alone to London for the ceremony. While this is bad enough, Jeffrey, the man who left her as they moved closer to marriage, happens to be the groom's best man. Determined to show everyone -- most of all Jeffrey -- that her romantic life is as full and thrilling as ever, Kat hires a charming male escort as her date.
The Wedding Date is a pleasant but unremarkable romcom built on a well-worn premise — the hired-date conceit was already familiar territory by 2005, and the script leans heavily on genre conventions without subverting them. Debra Messing and Dermot Mulroney have adequate chemistry but the supporting cast does most of the heavy lifting. The London and English countryside settings are shot attractively enough in a glossy, commercial style. The ending resolves predictably and hastily, undermining some of the tension built around the Jeffrey subplot. Novelty is low given the formulaic execution of the fake-boyfriend trope.