‘Wedding at Graceland’ sequel set for summer on Hallmark

Silver bells will give way to wedding bells when the Hallmark Channel in just a few months airs “Wedding at Graceland,” the inevitable sequel to the cable television network’s recent ratings smash, “Christmas at Graceland,” Hallmark officials confirmed Monday.

To be filmed in Memphis in April on a production schedule even more whirlwind than the featured couple’s courtship, “Wedding at Graceland” will reunite stars Kellie Pickler and Wes Brown as Laurel and Clay, the former Memphis sweethearts who rekindled their romance during “Christmas at Graceland.”

Expect the nuptials to take place in the Graceland Wedding Chapel in the Woods, which opened during Elvis Week last year on the grounds of the Elvis Presley mansion.

The honeymoon will continue (at least for fans of Hallmark romance and for Memphis film crew workers in need of a job) when Pickler returns in a third Elvis-inspired Hallmark movie set for December. That film does not yet have a title, according to Pam Slay, Hallmark’s senior vice president for network program publicity.

The third movie will be shot later in the year, and not back-to-back with the “Wedding” film, Slay said. Shooting on the second film likely will occur in July, on more or less the same schedule as “Christmas at Graceland” in 2018.

“Wedding at Graceland” will be the centerpiece of what Slay calls the Hallmark Channel’s “‘June Weddings’ franchise.” This “franchise” is an attempt to build a slate of original summer movies to match the appeal of the network’s “Countdown to Christmas,” an eightweek ratings juggernaut of romantic wish-fulfillment that now makes Hallmark the top network in December.

Shot in July in Memphis (with fake snow on the ground and actors in winter coats sweltering in the 90-plus-degree heat), “Christmas at Graceland” was the No. 1 Hallmark movie of the past year and the fourth highest-rated film in the channel’s history.

“Hallmark came with an idea, and obviously it has blossomed into an extremely successful pairing and spectacular ratings,” said Elvis Presley Enterprisese CEO Jack Soden, a Graceland fixture since Elvis’ mansion was opened to the public in 1982. “You take Hallmark’s large and dedicated audience and you take the Elvis fan world, and you have a match made in heaven.”

To coordinate the two new movies, Hallmark will retain production offices in Memphis from March through July and possibly into the early fall. Some shooting for the productions could take place on sets erected inside the 20,000square-foot Graceland Soundstage, the relatively new performance venue that — as its name indicates — was designed in hopes that one day it could serve double duty as a film location.