Stephanie (The Perfect Bride)

Stephanie (Sammi Davis) was the main villainess of the 1991 Lifetime film The Perfect Bride (airdate June 26, 1991).

We first see Stephanie as she is murdering her fiancee Robert Price the night before their wedding, having found out he went to see an ex-girlfriend that day, with an injection of potassium chloride. Years later, Stephanie is now engaged with Ted and is meeting his family for the first time. She is able to charm everyone in the family as they shower her with gifts and compliments. But she soon earns the temporary ire of Ted's sister Laura after her mother gives an old wedding dress to Stephanie, accusing her of trying to have Stephanie replace her sister Catherine, who died in a tragic accident when they were children that Laura blames herself for.

Later that night, Laura apologizes and offers to accompany her to the bridal shop the next day, which Stephanie accepts. They first go to a gym to meet Ted's friend George, but encounter an old high school girlfriend of Ted's, who seems to come on to him, angering Stephanie. She expresses this in the bridal shop, accusing the girl of being a slut. Later, when Laura mentions how an old relationship failed due to the man's reluctance to commit, Stephanie becomes agitated and accuses him of using Laura. She then snarls at the seamstress when she accidentally pokes Stephanie with a needle. She immediately apologizes, but Laura is unnerved.

The next day, Stephanie meets the caterer for the wedding and panics when the woman recognizes her, having been the caterer for her wedding to Robert Price and she recounts the story to Laura and her mother. Now very suspicious, Laura looks through Stephanie's things and is caught by Ted, who dismisses her concerns as jealousy. But later that night, Stephanie sneaks into the caterer's house and, after a struggle, pushes her down a set of stairs and kills her with potassium chloride. She steals the woman's necklace and cleans up the mess from their fight before leaving. When she returns home, Laura catches her in a lie about where she was, but Stephanie avoids suspicions from everyone else by presenting Laura with the stolen necklace, claiming to have bought it for her as a surprise.

The following day, Laura goes to Reverend Wells, the priest for the wedding, with her concerns about Stephanie. She asks her to ask Stephanie questions during a counselling session she and Ted will be having with him, and he reluctantly agrees. While Laura goes to the library to find out more information about Stephanie, she and Ted go to their counselling session and Ted reveals that he was previously engaged to a high school girlfriend. This angers Stephanie and triggers a memory of her childhood, causing her to snap and say Ted didn't care about her. After she calms down, she apologizes and reveals that she had been engaged before as well, but found out the man didn't love her. Ted forgives and comforts her. That night, Stephanie returns to the Reverend alone and he reveals that he has doubts about her and Ted marrying so soon. Stephanie then pulls out a needle and injects the Reverend when he's distracted. Laura then arrives to ask what the Reverend found out about Stephanie and the villainess hides before she can see her.

After much searching, Laura finds Darlene Harris, the ex-fiancee of Robert Price. She asks if she knows Stephanie (who romanced Robert under the alias Suzanne Potter), to which Darlene recounts how everyone thought Robert died of heart problems, but that he was really in perfect health. When Stephanie finds out about Laura's plans to meet with her, she goes ahead of Laura to pick her up, disguising herself so Darlene won't recognize her. During the drive, Stephanie accidentally reveals her accent, causing Darlene to recognize her. After a fight, Darlene tries to run, but trips and gets hit by another car. Stephanie flees and goes home, but after finding out Darlene survived, goes to the hospital and suffocates her to death. Later on, Stephanie spies on Ted at his bachelor party and is enraged to see him being entertained by strippers. Convinced he is just like all the other men in her life, she makes plans to kill him the night before their wedding. As she tries on her wedding dress in preparation of murdering Ted, she has a flashback to herself as a child: when she was a young girl, she walked in on her mother after she slit her wrists, having found out her husband-to-be had left her. She tells Stephanie never to let a man hurt her before dying, leading Stephanie down her dark path.

Just as Stephanie prepares to inject Ted, Laura arrives to save Ted and expose Stephanie. At first, Ted is outraged and almost allows Stephanie to inject Laura with the potassium chloride, claiming it to be a sedative. But Laura fights back, causing Ted to fall back and break a music box Stephanie kept with her. Stephanie becomes angry and yells at Ted, calling him Robert. Stephanie finally snaps and slashes Ted with a knife. She and Laura briefly fight before Laura knocks the knife from Stephanie's hand. Stephanie eventually chases Laura into the attic, where she hits her with a bat and knocks her back down through the attic door, killing her.

Stephanie (The Perfect Bride)

Gallery[]