Ellen Gray | 'Bells' role comes easy to KaDee Strickland

THE WEDDING BELLS. 9 p.m. tomorrow, Channel 29.

KADEE STRICKLAND brings on-the-job experience to her role as a wedding planner in David E. Kelley's new Fox series, "The Wedding Bells."

" 'I'm an expert on the subject,' " Strickland said she told the show's casting director when they first met. " 'I've been doing this for the past . . . few months of my life.' "

Married in November to fellow actor Jason Behr ("Roswell"), the 1998 University of the Arts grad, honored last year with the school's Silver Star Alumni Award, said she planned every step of the Ojai, Calif., ceremony in tandem with Behr, who was working on a film in New Zealand and arrived home just five days before they were married.

At one point, that meant flying to New Zealand, said Strickland, whose Georgia accent sounds untouched by the years she spent here.

"I came with all of the ideas. I'd send him e-mails when I'd go to the florist and then we'd shoot the pictures through the Internet and then talk about it," she said.

"There were hiccups" on the big day, she acknowledged.

"But when you have someone make an invitation that you've designed, and when you do little details yourself - like he and I chose to give favors that we made together, with our hands, so when you took something away that day, our hands had been in it - it's just more special that way," Strickland said.

"I was very specific about where I wanted to be on that day in terms of where my heart was, and that's exactly where it was. And when I walked down the aisle, the only thing in the world that mattered to me was right there," she said.

If you're winking away a tear around now, then you're probably going to enjoy "The Wedding Bells," a romantic comedy from David E. Kelley that might just be his least edgy work in years.

Sure, Strickland's character, Annie, the middle sister in a trio that took over their divorced parents' wedding business, appears to be a bit more romance-resistant than the actress playing her.

And, OK, Annie's younger sister, Sammy (Sarah Jones), does seem to have a weakness for groomsmen, while the company chef (Costas Mandylor) seems only to have eyes for her older, married sister (Dover, Del.'s Teri Polo).

But for those accustomed to Kelley's "Boston Legal" political screeds or his "Ally McBeal" hallucinations or the way "The Practice" had with heads and bowling bags, "Wedding Bells," with its Bridezillas and Momzillas, is going to feel like the ultimate no-spin zone.

With nary a dancing baby - or a severed body part - in sight.

That last bit was one of the attractions for Strickland, who's managed to support herself in films in recent years and thus has relatively little experience in television. (She and Behr met on "The Grudge.")

She first read Kelley's pilot a couple of weeks after her wedding.

"When I saw this script, I was blown away by it. I mean, David Kelley's obviously one of the most formidable writers of our time," she said, "but the subject of love and commitment is something to me that I want to walk into every day. It's a lot better than dead bodies."

Not that seeing dead people means nothing to her.

Strickland's first movie role was "Visitor No. 5" in M. Night Shyamalan's 1999 hit "The Sixth Sense," a two-line part that she landed while waiting tables at Rittenhouse Square's Marathon on the Square.

At the time, Strickland was also interning for Mike Lemon Casting, which handled local casting for the film, and had become familiar with the script while helping other actors read.

Shyamalan, she said, came into the restaurant with three associates from the film. Three of the four men, she recalled, ordered turkey sandwiches and when the fourth ordered a salad, one of the others jokingly accused him of breaking "continuity."

Strickland's response: "What are you, in the film business?"

At which point, she recognized Shyamalan - then years away from the American Express commercials that would make him a semi-famous face - and complimented him on his script, "never dreaming for a second he was going to hire his waitress," she said.

"On the set, he's very personal," Strickland said. "It doesn't matter if you have two lines . . . or if you're Bruce Willis. When I walked on to the set, he was very sweet. And I said to him, 'I'm not serving you food today.' "

She did, however, serve up a bigger performance than even Shyamalan might have expected.

As one of the visitors to a house following the funeral of a young girl, "I didn't know that the extras don't have to cry every take," she said.

"I tried to cry for 12 hours," she said. "You learn to temper that." *

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