Plot

A holiday wedding brings no joy to the bride's cousin, who was once engaged to the groom. But she might find her true love there when she gains a fake fiancé.

Aspiring interior designer Layla O'Reilly dreads the Christmastime wedding of her cousin, who is marrying Layla's ex-fiancé. Although Seth Murphy is the one responsible for introducing the bride and groom, she begrudgingly accepts his offer to be her date as she's out of options. Seth gets carried away at the reception and announces they're engaged, forcing a mortified Layla to keep up the pretense. But as the faux couple spends more time together, they find themselves feeling something very real.—Happy_Evil_Dude

Seth Murphy (Daniel Lissing) reunites with old friend Layla O'Reilly (Jessica Lowndes) and introduces her cousin to her fiancé, but they end up having feelings for each other. A few years later, Seth and Layla run into each other again and he asks her to be his date for the wedding and convinces her to accept. At the reception, Seth and Layla get an idea to be a fake couple, but Seth takes it too far and announces that they're engaged, and Layla gets angry. Later, Layla finds out that Stanley Malcolm sold Seth his house, which is being used for the Holiday Tour of Homes. Seth hires Layla to decorate it, and they grew closer and closer as the tour date arrives.

For several reasons associated to the fact that she loves Christmas, Layla O'Reilly, an up and coming interior decorator, has always wanted to be a December bride, and was scheduled to be one until her fiancé Jack ended up breaking up with her instead to get engaged to her cousin, Jessica, who will become that December bride. She blames the situation as much on the two of them as she does on acquaintance Seth Murphy who was the one that brought Jack and Jessica together in what was meant to be purely a business arrangement. Despite now being estranged from both Jack and Jessica, Layla is invited to the wedding, something that she is encouraged to attend by her maternal Aunt Lorraine, Jessica's mother, who she has always treated like her own mother, especially following her own mother's passing. Not wanting to be seen as the pitiful figure in the story, Layla agrees only on the condition that she can find a date who can be viewed by others as being potentially Jack's replacement in her life. When her initial date, her platonic neighbor Cooper, falls through at the last minute, she reluctantly accepts Seth's offer to be his date despite still being angry at him as well. Gauging the room, Seth, at the wedding, takes the guise of them dating to the next level by telling people that he and Layla are engaged. Seth vowing to Layla that he will rectify the situation by coming clean to everyone changes when they decide to take the ruse further if only temporarily each for professional reasons, Layla who wants to start her own design firm to get out from under the control of her "my way or the highway" boss, Darcy Sterling, who treats her more as an assistant than a designer in her own right. But the longer Layla and Seth carry on the ruse, the more difficult it becomes to come clean to everyone, that is unless they can face the actual truth which is that they truly are falling for each other.—Huggo