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Sure enough, one of the criteria they’re matched on is their strong work ethic. I throw my hands up in despair.
The final couple is Brian and Rosa. They’re older and have both been married before. He has two teenage children, and she has a grown-up son. She tells the camera that she has her heart set on marrying an Italian, because she loves the language, so we agree she’s going to be disappointed when she finds out he’s from Bolton. They’re matched because… well, we can’t actually work out why they have been matched beyond the fact that they’ve both been married before and have children.
I can feel Mads watching me as I follow Ed’s progress. This is as close as I’m ever going to get to meeting his friends and family, so I drink them in. His friends seem really nice and, although they’re surprised when he tells them what he’s doing, they rally round him. Michael, his best man, is a friend from university and is also a lawyer. Ed’s pieces to camera about why he’s signed up for the experiment and what he’s looking for come across as genuine and, try as I might, I just can’t reconcile this Ed with the one that ghosted me through his PA. Even Mads has stopped making obscene gestures and is listening closely.
His mum is difficult to read, but his dad reacts particularly badly to the news that he’s going to marry someone he’s never met, and initially threatens to have him sectioned. His sister, Lily, is lovely. I’m sure we’d have been great friends if Ed and I had made it.
Normally, when I watch this show with Mads, I follow all the couples with the same amount of interest, but this time I’m struggling to care about John and Daisy or Brian and Rosa. I just want to watch Ed and Sarah. I’m fascinated by her. This is the woman that Ed could have married. She doesn’t seem his type at all, or at least what I imagine his type to be. She’s high maintenance and demanding. Her friends make lots of jokes about how badly she reacts when things don’t go her way, and sure enough there is a spectacular meltdown over her wedding dress when she finds out that it’s way more expensive than the budget set by the programme and her father is refusing to fund the shortfall. She’s obviously been Daddy’s little princess all her life, and she’s totally unprepared for the strength of his reaction when she announces what she’s signed up to. After endless tantrums, the poor guy is worn down and relents.
‘What a spoilt little cow!’ Mads observes.
I try to give some attention to the other couples. John is very quietly spoken and seems easily overwhelmed by the process of getting married. He’s like a rabbit in the headlights in the suit shop, and fidgets uncomfortably in his shirt and tie. Daisy reminds me a bit of Mads; she’s very direct and level-headed. If I had to put money on one of these couples, I’d put it on them. She’ll be a good foil for him as long as she doesn’t overpower him.
Brian and Rosa haven’t even met, but they’re already like a slow-motion car crash. She’s totally unrealistic and keeps going on about Italian men being passionate lovers, and Italian being the language of love. He, on the other hand, owns a second-hand car business, and his idea of fun is an evening out with his mates.
‘What were they thinking?’ I murmur, and the others agree.
John and Daisy’s wedding is shown first. He’s bright red in the face and looks incredibly uncomfortable in his suit. He’s biting his lip with nerves and my heart goes out to him. ‘It’ll be OK, mate,’ I mouth at him. Daisy looks stunning in a very plain, off-the-shoulder cream dress that hugs her slender torso and swishes along the carpet as she walks. If she’s nervous she doesn’t show it, and she says her vows clearly and without hesitation. Poor John, on the other hand, stumbles through his, and seems to be getting redder and redder as the ceremony progresses. He’s starting to resemble a beetroot.
At last the screen goes up and they see each other. His delight is plain, as his face erupts in an enormous smile. Her reaction is a little harder to judge, but she doesn’t seem overtly disappointed. They exchange rings and she lets him give her a tiny kiss on the lips. In the pieces to camera after they’ve had a chance to introduce themselves to each other and done the photos, she admits that he isn’t what she’d imagined, but he seems really nice and she can see why the experts had thought they might be a good match. He, on the other hand, is over the moon and keeps saying how beautiful she is.
Their reception is a good-natured affair, and they seem to be getting on well. There are whispered conversations and a few more shy kisses. His speech is short and heartfelt, but it seems to hit the right note, as she gives him a smacker when he sits down. The friends and family seem to think they’re a good match, and point out that there’s been lots of eye contact and physical closeness. It’s fair to say that the first dance is a disaster, though. Poor John does his best and shuffles around manfully, but we’re all relieved when the other guests join in to take the spotlight off him. When they get to the hotel room, he carries her across the threshold and we leave them there.
Next up are Brian and Rosa. Brian’s suit looks a little cheap and ill-fitting to me, and he’s obviously nervous because he’s sweating buckets. It’s literally running down his face, and I feel terribly sorry for him. Rosa arrives in a peach-coloured dress that makes her look like one of those knitted dolls people have to cover their spare loo rolls. It’s truly hideous. As soon as he starts saying his vows you can see her face drop, and she makes no secret of her disappointment when the screen goes up. No kissing on the lips here; she barely lets him kiss her on the cheek. When it comes to the piece to camera her first words are, ‘I asked for an Italian! Why didn’t they give me an Italian? Have you seen how sweaty he is? I hate sweaty men.’ His tone is a little more conciliatory, and he says, ‘She’s not the sort of person that I would normally go for, but the experts obviously saw something and I’m happy to trust them.’
‘FOOL!’ Mads yells at the TV, making my father jump. I think he was probably starting to nod off. This really isn’t his type of show.
Things don’t improve at the reception. Brian is attentive to Rosa, but she’s barely civil to him, and there is no further physical contact, even during the first dance. When they get to the hotel, she doesn’t even construct the customary pillow barrier down the centre of the bed that the brides usually do to stop their new husbands getting any ideas; Brian is banished to sleep on the sofa.
‘I’ll be amazed if they make it to the end of the honeymoon,’ I say. Mads nods her agreement.
‘They certainly don’t seem a very good match,’ Mum agrees.
Finally, it’s Ed’s turn. He looks very smart in his morning coat, and my eyes are glued to him. I’m aware of Mads still watching me, but I don’t care any more. It’s like we’re back in Antigua, somehow, and none of the stuff since has happened. I can almost smell his distinctive aftershave, and I’m caught unaware by my ache of longing for him. The camera cuts to Sarah and her father in the car. She looks beautiful, and her dress, what I can see of it, has that effortless elegance that only happens when you spend eye-watering amounts of money. Her father is having one last go at talking her out of it and he’s very persuasive. He expresses his disappointment that a day which should be the proudest of his life is nothing more than a circus, his concern that Ed won’t understand her and will expect her to give up the business she’s fought so hard to build, and is basically trying everything he can to ram home the sheer irresponsibility of what she’s doing.
The editors, typically, make as much as they can of it all. The footage swaps repeatedly between shots of the car getting closer to the venue, Ed standing waiting for his bride, and the conversation between Sarah and her father. When they finally pull up at the venue, he turns to her and says, ‘This is it. This is your last chance. You can get out of this car and commit an act of sheer folly, or you can come to your senses. What’s it to be?’
They’re really milking it now. The footage cuts repeatedly between her conflicted face and an increasingly agitated Ed, before cutting to an ad break.
‘You seemed to be concentrating particularly hard during the last section,’ Mads comments as an advert for toothpaste plays out on screen. ‘Did you remember to breathe?’
‘Didn’t he look smart in his morning coat though?’ Mum interjects before I have a chance to tell Mads to piss off. ‘Quite the dashing gentleman. If I didn’t know what he was really like, I’d quite fancy him myself…’
When the ads are finished, the programme restarts back where we left it, with Sarah’s decision hanging in the balance. Eventually, she decides that her father is right, and we see the car driving slowly away, cut away with Ed receiving the news that she’s not coming.
Ed’s piece to camera, from the hotel room he and Sarah should have shared on their wedding night, is far more gracious than I would have managed in the circumstances. Where I would have been ranting, ‘How dare she think I’m not good enough!’ he is compassionate and forgiving. He does express his disappointment and embarrassment, but doesn’t direct any anger at her. The screen moves on to the previews for the next episode, and Mum turns off the TV as the credits start to roll.
I turn to Mads. ‘Do you see what I mean about him? It just doesn’t add up, does it?’
I hear Mads mutter something under her breath. I can’t quite make it out, but it sounds very like ‘Oh, for fuck’s sake!’
26
Rachel is already there when I get to work on Saturday morning.
‘How was your evening out?’ I ask her.
‘It didn’t happen. My friend, Ruth, got let down by her babysitter and Naomi isn’t well, so we’ve postponed it. I ended up staying in and watchingMarried Before We Meton Channel 4. Some poor guy got abandoned at the altar by his bride. Silly cow. I’d have snapped him up, he was gorgeous. It’s quite compelling though. You should watch it.’
