How Stars Kavan Smith, Pascale Hutton Got Hallmark’s ‘Perfect Bride 2’ Made

Hallmark Channel isn’t unaccustomed to giving sequels to its movies--just look at the recently premiered “Marrying Mr. Darcy” and the upcoming “Wedding March 4”--but that doesn’t mean every one of its many films gets the same opportunity. Luckily, “The Perfect Bride 2,” which premieres Saturday as part of the network’s June Weddings event, had stars Pascale Hutton (Molly) and Kavan Smith (Nick) championing the project to make it happen.

The original film, which followed a bridal boot camp instructor as she got closer to an already-engaged photographer, premiered during 2017’s same programming event and became a big hit with viewers. After seeing how much fans loved watching the movie and how much the two of them enjoyed filming it, Smith and Hutton decided they wanted to do a sequel. The two, who star together as a married couple on the network’s popular series “When Calls the Heart,” as well, got to work brainstorming.

“When we did that one we had such a great time. As soon as we finished we’re like, ‘Man, I hope people watch because I’d love to do this again,’” Smith told International Business Times. “And then they did watch.”

It was in early January when the duo decided to go to Hallmark to see if they’d hear them out about a sequel. “We went down, they listened and they were really nice about it and they said point-blank, ‘The people, the fans, seem to love you guys together, they love the first show together, absolutely, let’s do a sequel,’” Smith recalled.

Now, a year after the first installment premiered, the “The Perfect Bride: Wedding Bells” is set to debut. It’s all because fans showed up to support the movie and because its stars are dedicated to working with each other, to their fans and to this story of Nick and Molly.

“Everything fit so into place, so naturally and so easily, and then it aired and it did so well and the fans responded so well to it,” Hutton told IBT. “We just kind of thought, ‘You know what, this was such a blast the first go around, there’s more story to tell for these two characters, let’s keep going.”

“We really did kind of spearhead it,” Smith told IBT about the process. “We called Michelle [Vicary, EVP, Programming and Network Publicity] and Randy [Pope, SVP, Original Programming] at Hallmark and asked if we could meet with them and they were kind enough to take a meeting. We didn’t know if they were just being polite and being nice to us petulant, little child actors that wanted to do a show, but they were very receptive to our ideas.”

In the end, they said “‘Absolutely, we’d love to do it,’” right there in the meeting, according to Smith. Original writer Rick Garman jumped on board for the sequel and quickly got to work on the script to get the movie on schedule to premiere by 2018’s June Weddings event. It’s now finally here and the stars are already looking ahead to a third movie, which shows just how much they love working together and on this project.

“We’re already thinking about a third,” Smith said. “If we can get people on board, if we can get people to watch, we already have a great idea for a third one.” While he would only share that out of all the movies, they have the “strongest idea yet” for the possible third movie, Hutton had a little more to reveal about the potential plot.

“I think the natural thing is to put these two on a honeymoon. And what I’d love to see is a honeymoon where kind of the running theme throughout the entire movie and sequel is this idea of ‘What is perfect,’” Hutton said. “Like, if you’re trying to attain perfect, then you’re kind of missing the point.”

The actress continued: “We like the idea of it being the idea of the two of them traveling somewhere exotic for a honeymoon and literally everything going wrong. It being totally unromantic and bad weather and disaster after disaster and so it’s the opposite of a perfect honeymoon. But, do they kind of get discouraged by that and throw the towel in? Or, do they embrace it and go, ‘Well, this is the adventure and let’s go for it?’”

While a third movie isn’t a done deal just yet, the second movie is and it premieres on Hallmark Channel on Saturday at 9 p.m. EST.