The Fabry-Perot model is proposed to analyze the wavelength-selective transmission behaviors of the metal-dielectric-metal waveguide with a rectangular side-coupled cavity. The guided modes propagating in the waveguide and the cavity are extracted by the aperiodic Fourier modal method (a-FMM). The scattering coefficients that appeared in the model are calculated by the a-FMM and the normal-mode theory. The applications of such structure in the wavelength-selective filter and the refractive index sensor are also discussed. Our model is shown to accurately predict the fully vectorial data and thus can provide reliable and quantitative analysis of this kind of device.