'I married a stranger on Married at First Sight but I'd actually applied to be on another reality dating show'
A TV bride who was a fan favourite on MAFS UK was actually hoping to find love on another show.
They say that it’s a small world, and when it comes to reality TV dating that certainly seems to be true.
There’s couples who are now together after each appearing on separate dating shows, like Love is Blind star Giannina Gibelli and The Bachelorette contestant Blake Horstmann.
There’s also couples who have appeared on different versions of the same show but managed to meet and fall in love, such as Love is Blind UK’s Ollie Sutherland and Love is Blind US star Amber Desiree ‘AD’ Smith, who are now engaged and expecting a baby.
Most commonly, there’s couples who were both cast in the same dating show but weren’t paired together and have since found that they were meant to be; MAFS UK’s Shona Manderson and Matt Pilmoor, MAFS Australia’s Duncan James and Evelyn Ellis, as well as MAFS Aus stars Jonathan McCullough and Ellie Dix, plus Jacqui Burfoot and Clint Rice. It also seems to be a theme for Love is Blind too, with LIB US’s Sara Carton and Joey Leveille and LIB UK’s Catherine Richards and Jake Singleton-Hill also all falling for each other after the cameras stopped rolling.
Love is Blind UK series 2 groom Kieran Holmes-Darby also recently revealed he’d actually signed up to be on Love Island and was lined up to be a potential bombshell but never actually cast. It was obviously all fate as he met and married now wife Megan Jupp on LIB instead, and the pair are the only success story from their series.
It turns out that Kieran isn’t the only one who actually had his sights set on another TV show. In a chat with NationalWorld, on behalf of Esports Insider, Married at First Sight UK 2024 fan favourite bride Emma Barnes revealed she’d applied to be on none other than Love is Blind.
When asked if she would still have gone ahead with her MAFS wedding had it been legally binding, as the ceremonies on the show were until the format was changed from series 6 onwards to adopt the approach taken by the Australian version, Emma made the revelation.
“I originally applied for Love is Blind, that’s how the MAFS people found me,” she said. “And Love is Blind’s legally binding at the end of it, so if I was willing to sign up to LIB then I probably would.”
However, she did add: “I think now I know I’d have been paired with Caspar and it didn’t end well I probably wouldn’t.” Though she did laugh and concluded by saying “I think I would [have still signed up if her marriage had been official and legal]”.
Fans of the show will know that Emma’s marriage to Caspar didn’t work out as they realised, after many weeks of trying to ignite a romantic spark, that they didn’t have anything more than friendship between them. But, still she says she has “no regrets” about taking part in her favourite TV show.
She added that although her wedding wasn’t real she does think of herself as divorced - but that isn’t a bad thing. “I think it adds a little bit of spice. I say I’ve been married before [and] have an ex-husband,” she said with a smile.
The former TV bride also explained how her wedding and her marriage felt “very real” because she and her on screen husband met at the altar and then spent around eight weeks with one another 24/7.
“It moves super quick,” she said. “You form deeper connections. . . Plus, my friends did a hen do for me before the wedding, you still have to buy the dress, you still have to prepare everything. . . I still see it as I had a real wedding, even though it wasn’t legally binding.”