When Farmer Wants a Wife met Beauty and the Geek!
Beauty and the Geek’s Jessica marries Farmer Wants a Wife hunk Matthew
They tried looking for love on different reality shows, but it wasn’t until they stepped away from the cameras that Jessica Zinna and Matthew Gallagher found each other, in the ultimate “reality TV” romance.
The pair met at the races in Melbourne in 2012, and have been together ever since.
Wedding day
“Watching Jessica walk down the aisle, and to see her father standing in front of me with tears in his eyes handing her over to me, was incredible,” Matt says. “It was just perfect.”
Jessica says she she’dd given up on finding true love. But she fell head over heels for the farmer from the tiny Victorian town of Waubra when they talked for five hours, over beer and pizza, after their very first meeting.
“He had chicks all over him and looked pretty cocky, so no, I wouldn’t say it was love at first sight,” laughs Jessica.
“I hadn’t ever even seen an episode of Farmer Wants a Wife, and I certainly wasn’t looking to marry one. But once we started chatting, that was it.”
Matthew agrees. “I never saw myself with a princess, and there was Jessica with massive heels and dressed to the max, looking like a real city girl.”
But opposites do attract, and in weeks Jessica was “driving a tractor in heels and miniskirts”. Then, just a few months later, she fell pregnant with their “miracle” baby Jax, conceived naturally after she’d battled cervical cancer.
“Walking down the aisle with my father and seeing Matt there was amazing,” says Jessica, who wore gowns designed by Annette of Melbourne Couture.
The couple wed on the sand at Port Douglas, on a beautiful sunny afternoon. But this was no simple beach wedding, with Matthew joking he could have bought a “small farm” with the money they spent!
Jessica promised him plenty of surprises. The first one was when she sang I Want to Grow Old with You, which Adam Sandler sang in one of their favourite films, The Wedding Singer.
“It was the best day of my life,” Jessica says happily. “To be able to share it with my family and friends was just beautiful.”
‘I wasn’t looking to marry a farmer … but once we started chatting, that was it.’