LOVE IS BLIND
Especially if you let your family plan the wedding so you’re completely in the dark until the big day
YOU’VE heard of Don’t Tell the Bride, but a new Welsh TV series will see both the bride and groom kept in the dark about their wedding as friends and family organise their big day.
Starting on S4C on November 13, Priodas Pum Mil will see couples hand the most important day of their lives over to loved ones, with only £5,000 to spend on the whole day.
First up are couple Iolo and Nia Roberts, from Bethesda.
For them, it all started when Iolo and Nia met 13 years ago in Time nightclub, Bangor. Iolo, who is now 32, was studying for an NVQ at the time, and realised he was following the same course as Nia’s brother.
Iolo saw the channel’s advert on Facebook and, without telling teaching assistant Nia, he applied to the show and was accepted before telling his wife-to-be who, luckily, fell in love with the idea after her initial disbelief.
Iolo said: “We got engaged at a restaurant in Manchester in January. Otherwise I mightn’t have popped the question until later in the year.”
Power station worker Iolo, from Llannerch-y-medd, Anglesey, added: “I like to do things a bit differently wherever I can just to be different to other people around us. And what better way to get married than this?”
When asked whether similar programmes like the BBC’s Don’t Tell The Bride stressed him out, he said: “Not really, I’m easy going. I told them I was up for a laugh and Nia was easy-going as well.”
He added: “It’s good for us because we’re really not very good at making decisions, especially Nia.
“She made one or two suggestions to the girls about flowers, but handed the rest over to them. It’s probably for the best, really: she can’t even pick a drink when she’s out with her friends on a night out – she just has what they’re having.
“Our family and friends have told us they had a lot of fun organising our wedding, they also admitted it was a little bit stressful. But it was a relaxing experience for Nia and me.
“Having said that, Nia was very nervous about what the dress would be like. We just wanted a nice day. I wanted it to be nice for her and that everything was planned well.”
The couple have three young children and while they are not old enough to understand their parents’ daring attitude, Iolo said their eldest daughter Elsa, four, took delight in being able to wear a dress for her mum and dad’s big day.
They said that with £5,000 being very modest in comparison to the rising cost of weddings, the couple embraced it and were confident their friends and family could pull it off.
Iolo said: “Being on the show has been an awesome experience.”
Keeping an eye on all the arrangements throughout the series, from choosing a wedding dress and suits, to baking a cake and picking a venue will be presenters Emma Walford and Trystan Ellis-Morris.
The weddings appear on the show on six consecutive Sundays. They were held in Devil’s Bridge, Criccieth, Caernarfon and Newport in Pembrokeshire.
Priodas Pum Mil starts on S4C on November 13 at 8pm