The Practice may have made a star out of Marla Sokoloff, but one look at her acting resume and evidence of screen magic is magnanimous.

Flower Girl Marla SokoloffSokoloff currently stars in Flower Girl from the classic cinema-for-television of The Hallmark Channel. The November 15 premiere of Flower Girl on the network hits TV screens at 8 pm.

Sokoloff phoned SheKnows for an exclusive chat about being a Flower Girl on the Hallmark Channel while simultaneously planning her own wedding and how wedding scenes from the film are inspiring her own nuptials.

Marla Sokoloff: Hello, Joel.

SheKnows: Well, hello, Marla, how are you?

Marla Sokoloff: I’m excellent, how are you?

SheKnows: I’m doing great, thanks for phoning SheKnows about your new Hallmark movie, Flower Girl. I have to start by asking what was it like just to spend time with Marion Ross?

Marla Sokoloff: (Laughs) It was amazing. She’s such a talent and such a legend and an absolute sweetheart to boot. My favorite part of Marion was that she has kind of a wicked sense of humor. Every once and a while she would say something totally jolting that you would never expect Marion Ross to say (laughs).

SheKnows: What was the big appeal for you — not just for Flower Girl — but about your character in Flower Girl?

Marla Sokoloff: It’s really funny. I got the job about a week after I got engaged in my real life.

SheKnows: You kidding! Congratulations.

Marla Sokoloff: Yeah! Thanks, I was really excited to be involved in a project that was wedding related. Because when you are engaged, that is really all you care about or want to talk about (laughs). So it was fun to be completely obsessed with it in my real life and go to work and dealing with beautiful flowers and trying on beautiful wedding dresses.

Marla SokoloffSheKnows: Talk about timing, too…

Marla Sokoloff: Yeah, it was very strange.

SheKnows: Did you get any ideas for your own wedding?

Marla Sokoloff: I did, it’s funny, mainly flower ideas.

SheKnows: Sure…

Marla Sokoloff: I took a lot of pictures and emailed them to my wedding planner when an arrangement would come in that I liked.

SheKnows: I wondered.

Marla Sokoloff: Laughs

(more…)

Television has been marrying off Marla Sokoloff for much of the past decade, her sweet girl-next-door looks having helped land her in a wedding dress in five acting roles on the small screen.

Forget about always being the bridesmaid. Sokoloff was always the bride. And she gets to be again (walk down the aisle number five) in the Hallmark Channel movie “Flower Girl,” premiering at 8 p.m. Saturday. The romantic comedy finds Sokoloff, 28, playing a florist who’s always attracted to the wrong men, but who finally finds true love.

But it turns out that all of Sokoloff’s “altar” egos are going to have a purpose beyond a paycheck for her after all. Sunday, just six days before her latest TV wedding, she did the marital thing for real when the star of “The Practice” exchanged vows with her boyfriend of five years, film and TV composer Alec Puro, in Beverly Hills.

Trying to recall a similar instance of television and life dovetailing with a nuptial twist produces no examples. Perhaps the closest thing would be Lucille Ball’s delivering her actual son on the same night (Jan. 19, 1953) as her TV character Lucy Ricardo gave birth on “I Love Lucy.”

“It’s pretty wild, isn’t it?” gushes Sokoloff of this momentous example of life-imitating-art. Or is it art-imitating-life? “It was pretty exciting to be doing ‘Flower Girl’ at the same time I was actually engaged, which happened just before we started shooting the movie in October of ’08.

“I feel like I’ve had enough practice for this in my career, you know? I’m more than ready for the real thing.”

The plotline of “Flower Girl” finds Sokoloff portraying a florist named Laurel Haverford, who’s losing hope that her prince is ever going to ride up on a white horse after having gone through an assortment of toads. It’s her grandmother, Rose Durham — played by Marion Ross, the legendary star of “Happy Days” — who keeps fixing her up under the theory that the path to Mr. Right may be littered with potholes but eventually will bear fruit.

Is there any sort of autobiographical element to the story for Sokoloff? She admits to having gone through her share of guys en route to finding The One, including a long-term relationship with actor James Franco.

“It’s never a simple journey,” she admits, “but that just makes it better when you meet the one you want to spend the rest of your life with.”

Sokoloff’s breakthrough role as a sassy receptionist on “The Practice” led to movie roles in the comedy “Dude, Where’s My Car” opposite Ashton Kutcher and on the tube in everything from “Desperate Housewives” to the comedy series “Big Day” to “Modern Men.”

From News OK

Premieres November 14, 2009
9:00 pm on the Hallmark Channel

Just in time for the holiday season comes Flower Girl, the story of a lovelorn florist torn between the perfect guy “and a perfect stranger. After years of doing flowers for other people`s weddings, eternally single Laurel Haverford (Marla Sokoloff, The Practice) has almost given up on finding love ” until her marriage-minded grandmother, Rose Durham (5-time Emmy nominee Marion Ross from Happy Days), fixes her up with a charming doctor (Terry Maratos). But when Laurel meets a mysterious writer (Kieren Hutchison, One Tree Hill) determined to sweep her off her feet, she soon finds herself forced to choose between two very different men. For a florist who has had never been lucky in love, it`s about time everything started coming up roses!

The second film by Brooklyn-based writer (and publicist) Marjorie Sweeney, Flower Girl will have its broadcast premiere on Saturday, November 14, 2009 at 9:00 pm, with encores on Saturday, November 14 (11pm/10c), Sunday, November 15 (1am/12c) and (9pm/8c) and throughout the holiday season.

From The SOP

The folks at Hallmark Channel are loving the fact that Marla Sokoloff is getting married in real life — to Deadsy drummer Alec Puro — two weeks before she’ll be seen as the bride in their “Flower Girl” original movie, Nov. 14. Sokoloff is getting a kick out of it as well. “I got engaged a week before I got this job,” she tells us. “It was all very close. The funny thing is, I have already been a bride five times,” she adds. Her bridal roles were in “Big Day,” “Crazylove,” “Drop Dead Divas,” “Sugar & Spice” and “Maneater.”

“I don’t know what it is about me that has a bridal look or something. How is this possible? I guess if I were asked to play a stripper seven times, that would bum me out,” says the former “The Practice” actress.

Sokoloff says that as far as picking up pointers from all those faux nuptials, “the main thing would be the dress. I’ve been to so many bridal dress fittings, I knew what was flattering.”

She and Puro, who met via mutual friends Jessica Capshaw and her husband, Christopher Gavigan, “knew we had so much in common when we first started talking … Love kind of comes when you don’t expect it,” notes Sokoloff.

They expect about 115 guests to be on hand when they make their vows. As far as the style of their wedding, well, “mine could not be further from the fantasy wedding in the movie,” she says, referring to the fairy-tale-worthy affair in “Flower Girl.” “I love my character. She’s a complete romantic, yet sensible, too.”

And then there’s her movie grandmother, Marion Ross. “I’ve always been such a huge fan of hers, since ‘Happy Days.’ She has a wicked sense of humor, kind of dirty at times. I loved that about her.” Mrs. C.? Goodness.

From the National Ledger

Hallmark Channel is marrying off Marla Sokoloff in the network’s original movie “Flower Girl.” The romantic comedy will see the actress wed on TV six days after her real-life walk down the aisle.

Sokoloff, who is set to marry film and TV composer fiancé Alec Puro early next month, will play a florist who is always attracted to the wrong men, but finally finds true love in the end.

She will play Laurel Haverford, who is starting to lose hope that her prince is ever going to show up after going through an assortment of toads. TV icon Marion Ross will play her grandmother, who keeps fixing her up.

“Flower Girl” will premiere on November 14 on Hallmark Channel.

Hallmark Channel is marrying off Marla Sokoloff in the network’s original movie “Flower Girl.” The romantic comedy will see the actress wed on TV six days after her real-life walk down the aisle.

Sokoloff, who is set to marry film and TV composer fiancé Alec Puro early next month, will play a florist who is always attracted to the wrong men, but finally finds true love in the end.

She will play Laurel Haverford, who is starting to lose hope that her prince is ever going to show up after going through an assortment of toads. TV icon Marion Ross will play her grandmother, who keeps fixing her up.

“Flower Girl” will premiere on November 14 on Hallmark Channel.

Read more: All Headline News

Talk about type casting. In her past five acting roles, Marla Sokoloff has played a bride. You might remember her as the bride in “Drop Dead Diva” who wanted to sue because she caught her fiancé in flagrante delicto with her best friend? Coming up on Nov. 14, she plays a woman who finally makes it to the altar after dating a lot of Mr. Wrongs, when Hallmark Channel premieres “Flower Girl.”

But now, Sokoloff is getting married in real life, and she says that the fact she has tried on so many wedding gowns as a part of her job affected her enjoyment when it came time to select her own bridal ensemble.

“I felt like when I was looking for my real-life dress that it was anti-climactic because I had done it so many times,” Sokoloff tells ET. “I just didn’t feel that excitement you are supposed to feel when you find the dress. But then, when my actual dress was delivered to my house [a gown by Amsale] last week, I was so excited, I ripped it open like it was ‘Sex and the City,’ and I finally had my moment.”

In contrast to the gown that she wears in “Flower Girl,” which is pouffy, Sokoloff says her own dress is simple. “I didn’t want to do anything crazy,” says the actress, who also decided to only have two bridesmaids. “I didn’t want to have a princess ball gown or anything like that. I am definitely more of a subtle bride. That is all I want to say. What if my fiancé reads this?!”

Sokoloff is marrying film and TV composer Alec Puro in a black/white themed November wedding. The couple met through a mutual friend, but the actress says even though she has found her prince, she can relate to her “Flower Girl” character, who kissed a lot of toads. “I think we have all had our share of bad choices in that department,” she says, laughing.

“Flower Girl” premieres on Saturday, Nov. 14 at 9 p.m. on the Hallmark Channel.

From ET Online