vanessa marcil giovinazzo

"Marriage is death," as the saying goes, for soap opera couples, meaning that head writers often find it difficult to come up with story and conflict for happily wed duos. But the scribes at 'General Hospital' don't appear to have that problem with star-crossed lovers Sonny and Brenda, who are (finally!) tying the knot.

Several obstacles stand before the duo. First, there's Carly, Sonny's vengeful ex-wife, who is determined to tell Sonny that Brenda gave birth to his own grandchild in order to make sure that the wedding doesn't happen.

And then there's Maude Adrienne Barbeau, aka Brenda's "pal" Suzanne. In reality she and her husband, the Balkan (Daniel Benzali), are the parents of the man whom Brenda killed. They've vowed to get even!

Finally, there's Franco (played by James Franco), who is obsessed with destroying Jason. What better way to accomplish that than to ruin the life of Jason's best friend Sonny and Jason's pal and one-time wife, Brenda?

TV Squad spoke to Maurice Benard (Sonny) and Vanessa Marcil Giovinazzo (Brenda) for a preview of today's highly anticipated episode.

Lucky's in a bind on 'General Hospital.'

Luke and Laura's son, who's been masquerading as Irishman Ronan O'Reilly (and doing a fine Irish accent in the process), attempts to pull a fast one on the mysterious Balkan Tue., Nov. 9 when he attempts to "exchange" Brenda for kidnapped ladylove Siobhan. With the aid of snipers Jason and Dante, Lucky hopes to save both women.

The action-filled showdown involves gunfire and fight scenes. While soaps are taped at a rapid pace today, the production team at 'GH' carefully rehearsed the climatic moment with the actors playing Lucky, Brenda, Siobhan and the bad guys.

"In terms of our regular acting scenes we move really, really fast," Jonathan Jackson (Lucky) told TV Squad. "But for the stunts they want to make sure everyone's safe and all the precautions are in place."

Sonny Corthinos has had a lot of leading ladies over the years on 'General Hospital,' but fans know that there's only one true love of his life -- Brenda Barrett, played by Vanessa Marcil Giovinazzo.

The Emmy-winning actress makes her official return to 'GH' -- and Sonny's life -- Aug. 11, but fans have been treated to recent rebroadcasts of classic Brenda episodes. Another four will air on Sun., Aug. 15 on SOAPnet.

Marcil Giovinazzo recently sat down with TV Squad to talk about her return to 'GH,' her primetime series'Las Vegas' coming to an end, why she's swearing off pancakes and what viewers can expect to see now that Brenda's back where she belongs.

A lot of couples have a "meet cute" story, a story on how they met. The same goes with Vanessa Marcil Giovinazzo, and she told the story on 'The Wendy Williams Show' (weekdays, check local listings).

The actress and her husband actually met 10 years ago at a restaurant. Marcil had lost her car keys and went back into the restaurant to see if she had dropped them, and her future husband was sitting in her seat and helped her look for them.

Oh, the keys? Watch the video and you'll see where they were. They should make a movie based on this story. Maybe with Elizabeth Banks and Paul Rudd.