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The Story
Jennifer Lopez stars as Mary Fiore, a professional wedding
planner who is rapidly making a name for herself in her chosen career.
She lands the big accounts and turns her company profitable with her
take-control and strive-for-perfection professional attitude. Mary
demonstrates incredible control over the mind-boggling logistics and detail,
and makes weddings run incredibly smooth. She plans for the unexpected
and has an eye for detail. When the bride has cold feet, she plays
counselor and coaches the bride back to full composure. When the
father of the bride ("F.O.B." in her wedding planner lingo) shows
up drunk, she knows exactly what to do to turn it all around and make the
wedding a success. As much control and confidence she exudes in her
line of work, when it comes to her own love life, she's a wreck. She
hasn't dated for two years... to the point where her father sets up dates
for her. When asked why she does her job so well, but yet still finds
herself lonely, she responds:
"You know those who can't do, teach? Well those
who can't wed, plan."
One day, Mary literally falls into the hands of a handsome
stranger, Dr. Steve Edison (Matthew McConaughey). They were just
getting to know each other and she was just falling for him, then she
discovers that he's the fiancé of Fran Donolly (Bridgette Wilson-Sampras),
by far her biggest client to date - the account that would make her a
partner in her firm. Now, her life is turned inside-out as she
realizes that she's not in total control of her destiny. Will she deny
her feelings and perform her job in a professional manner? Or will she
give it all up to have the man of her dreams? Ahhhh... What could be
more romantic?
I thoroughly enjoyed this romantic comedy. Jennifer
Lopez gives a darling of a performance, and her on-screen chemistry with
Matthew McConaughey makes the romantic storyline really work. I
particularly enjoyed the ballroom dance classroom scene, Chapter 11.
As it turns out, both stars worked really hard on this sequence. If
you're looking for a wonderfully sweet romantic comedy, be sure to add
"The Wedding Planner" to your "to do" list. 
The Extras
"The Wedding Planner" contains the following set of bonus
material:
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Audio commentary by director Adam Shankman and writers
Pamela Falk and Michael Ellis: These three are pretty funny and make
the audio commentary an entertaining experience. Can you believe
the flowers used in the opening wedding scene cost $40,000 wholesale?
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Making-of featurette: there's not much here.
It's mostly a repeat of the theatrical trailer with interviews of
Jennifer Lopez and Matthew McConaughey cut in. (3 minutes)
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"The Dancer and the Cowboy" featurette: a
nice short featurette on the making of the ballroom classroom dance
sequence and the horseback riding sequence. (3 minutes)
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Deleted scenes with optional director's commentary:
the deleted scenes are entitled: "Little Mary", "The
Page", "Can't Stop Smiling", "Arriving in
Napa", "Seating Arrangements/Ironing", and "At the
Cemetery". Even though they are called "deleted
scenes", some are the extended version included in the theatrical
film. I think all of these deleted scenes should have
been included in the movie, as some are funny while others further
develop the characters. These scenes are not shown with the fully
produced picture quality.
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Filmographies for cast and crew
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Theatrical trailers for "The Wedding
Planner", "My Best Friend's Wedding", "U Turn",
and "Anaconda". Jennifer Lopez stars in all but "My
Best Friend's Wedding".
Video & Audio
The image quality of this anamorphic
widescreen DVD is good. It could be much better, however, as the
occasional dust specks mars what could have been a much better video
transfer. The colors are accurate and
saturated, while shadow detail is good. The Dolby
Digital 5.1 soundtrack is well balanced, though the surround sound
channels are not aggressively used.
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Visit "The Wedding
Planner" web site and the Columbia TriStar
Home Entertainment web site.
Did you find this DVD movie review helpful? Let us
know your thoughts, send an e-mail to us at Feedback@TimeForDVD.com.
Associated equipment used in evaluation: Sony
DVP-S7700 reference DVD player, Sony
KP-61V45 61" rear projection TV (4:3 screen aspect ratio), Sony ES
STR-V444ES A/V receiver, NHT 2.1 as left/right main speakers, NHT 1.1C center channel speaker, NHT
SuperZero as surround speakers, Monster Cable M-series S-Video cable MSV-500, Monster
Cable Interlink LightSpeed 100 (Toslink) optical cable, Monster Cable XP speaker
wires, and Sony MDR-V600 studio monitor headphones. Our home theater equipment was calibrated
with the Video
Essentials DVD.
Be sure to check out our Top 10 DVDs of the year
2001 and our list of this year's Oscar winners on DVD.
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United We Stand
