Bachelor Canada finalists announce their wedding date
Brad and Bianka offer thoughts on new season of U.S. version
Before we get into their thoughts on the upcoming Bachelor finale, Brad Smith and fiancee Bianka Kamber have news to share: They’ve set a date for their wedding.
Smith, the first Bachelor Canada, and Kamber are busy planning for the big day, scouting out venues in the Toronto area.
“We are officially setting our intention to do it in June of next year,” Smith says from the home they share with Kamber’s parents in Mississauga. Will the ceremony take place on Crane Beach in Barbados, where Smith proposed on the finale of the Citytv reality series?
“No, we will do it here. I have so much family here. I want everybody to be able to come,” Kamber says.
And just like he said after their engagement went public, Smith would marry her any day of the week ... like tomorrow.
“I’d rather do it sooner, but it would be just too much of a rush,” Smith says. “I realized in the Croatian culture, you have about 94 parties leading up to the wedding.”
When I say that all the hoopla is just the way that family and friends celebrate the couple’s happiness and share in their love, Smith lets loose with a laugh. “Everybody already has! They got to see it on TV. I just wanted to get married.”
So, that’s Canada’s Bachelor and his intended settled. What about his counterpart south of the border? On Monday’s season finale of The Bachelor, Sean Lowe must choose between Catherine Giudici and Lindsay Yenter.
It’s a position Smith found himself in, when his decision came down to Kamber or Calgarian Whitney Lee.
“The thing people have to realize is that there are fan favourites — everyone loves Des (whom Sean sent home a few episodes back) — but he has to live with the one he picks, or doesn’t pick,” Smith says.
“The sad fact of reality TV is that The Bachelor is not American Idol: you can’t phone in who you want Sean to pick. That would be an amazing, terrible show,” he says with a laugh.
Kamber, meanwhile, can relate to the final two women in the running. She credits her “easygoing attitude” for keeping her nerves relatively calm in such a stressful situation.
“I was never in the place where my life would be over if Brad didn’t pick me. It’s OK. Sometimes you don’t have the chemistry. It doesn’t mean you’re not a good person, it just means you weren’t good for each other,” she says. “And I was always OK with that.”
That said, both are favouring Giudici, whom they say seems down to earth and “goofy” enough for Lowe. “It’s tough to judge the girls without knowing who there are outside of who they are on TV,” Smith points out. And that’s something that comes up when they watch the show with Kamber’s family and friends.
“They’re the ones talking to the TV. We’re like, ‘No, they’re filming for hours and you didn’t see this and that.’ We’re the ones who jump in to defend them,” Smith says.
Kamber adds, “My mom is like, ‘I want him to choose this one.’ And I’m saying, ‘But Mom, why would you want him to choose the one you like? He has to choose.’ ”
They keep the conversation going beyond the bounds of “Hotel Kamber,” as Smith calls it. Last week, he tweeted a pic of himself drinking wine — pinky daintily extended — with Kamber’s mother and her friends as they watched the show. And he’s unleashed a raft of tweets on Tierra, taking on everything from her rogue eyebrow to her infamous “sparkle.” But he does give the “Tierraist” (this season’s designated villain) credit with one thing.
“The only sense Tierra made the other night on The Women Tell All, was when she said, ‘You come into it, and you don’t know how to handle it.’ And that is the exact truth. You can prepare yourself as much as for what you think is going to happen and for it to be a fun time, but until you get into it, and it becomes serious for you or not, you don’t know.”
Since making their relationship public in November of last year, the couple has stayed in the spotlight, making appearances at events across the country. Last week, they walked the red carpet at the Canadian Screen Awards, where Smith was a presenter. They’re involved in some charity events at Toronto Fashion Week later this month and are still waiting for the media interest in their relationship to die down.
But for now, Smith has some words of wisdom for Lowe — and the Canuck who will take over the rose duties on Season 2 of The Bachelor Canada in 2014.
“I think before you ever use that word (love) on the show, or ever say that out loud, you have to really assess if you are getting caught up in the moment or if it is actual feelings,” Smith says. “The two can kind of trick you in the fact that you are doing all these extravagant things ... you always have to assess if you are in the moment thinking about it, or if you are thinking bigger picture, which is the hard thing to tell until the cameras drop away.
“For me and B, we knew we made the right decision, but we still had to assess if it was the best decision or a rushed decision. Once we got off the show, it was, ‘Oh, it’s an amazing decision.’ ”