“I Need a YooHoo.” “I Refilled the Refrigerator This Morning.”
It looked for quite a while that Hallmark was done with their Signed, Sealed, Delivered franchisee. If that had been true, it would have had a good run – a pilot movie, a TV season, and then eleven movies. But three years after that eleventh movie, Hallmark surprised everyone by releasing a twelfth movie – The Vows We Have Made.
It’s interesting that we had two movies with weddings back-to-back in the franchise. But fans who have been following along weren’t at all surprised. And we would have been upset if we hadn’t gotten to see both weddings.
All along, we’ve followed the four members of the Denver Post Office’s Dead Letter Office. Dubbed the POstables, we’ve watched them build solid friendships and pair up romantically. As this movie opens, newlyweds Rita and Norman (Yan-Kay Crystal Lowe and Geoff Gustafson) are looking at buying a house (with Ramon (Zak Santiago) as the realtor because what doesn’t this guy do).
But we are only days away from the wedding of Shane and Oliver (Kristin Booth and Eric Mabius). Everything seems to be in order. That is, until Shane’s mother, Sharon (Sherry Miller) shows up a day early. Sharon is…interesting, and her unexpected arrival throws Shane into a tizzy. Meanwhile, Eric is having his own issues coming to the forefront making him seem to be withdrawing from Shane.
And yes, they do have a new case to be solving. In the midst of some mail stuck together after a syrup accident, they find a letter from a child in a hospital. Can they figure out who he is? And who might the letter be intended for?
There is a lot going on here. Enough that the case of the week becomes more of a subplot. But I’m not complaining because, let’s face it, we are all here for the wedding. There is much less drama with the wedding itself than last time, which I was happy for. The drama is all happening leading up to it, but I really truly appreciated how it was handled. It came from what we know about the characters, which means longtime fans will appreciate the character growth. It’s nice to see how this series has kept the continuity across so many years.
Speaking of which, the movie does fix a potential continuity issue with Oliver and his mother, one I must admit I missed originally because of how long it was between when I watched some of the earlier movies before the binge I went on this year.
On the other hand, this movie seemed to forget that Norman and Rita were planning to build a large family by adopting. Then again, their storyline allowed us to meet Charly, a new character to the franchise. She is played by Rhiannon Fish. I was happy to see her pop up here since I’ve been enjoying her in other Hallmark and Great American Family movies. Her storyline is a little ridiculous at times, but I’m being a bit nitpicky.
I will say, coming off of To the Altar, the previous movie, this one wasn’t quite as good. If I had waited three years for it, I probably would have appreciated it more. But since I waiting about six days, this one just didn’t feel as emotionally satisfying on a fan level like the previous movie did.
Now, this isn’t to say I didn’t enjoy the movie. Yes, I teared up several times along the way, and the wedding was fabulous. I loved the vows that Shane and Oliver had written.
And the actors, including the new ones I mentioned, were fabulous.
Fans will enjoy The Vows We Have Made. It really makes me happy to find visiting
these characters still so satisfying.
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