Newlyweds series is already on the rocks

Sky Living, Monday

WITH any luck, my fiancée and I will be getting married at some point in the next 12 months.

That may sound a little odd, but having had to postpone our intentions twice already through no fault of our own, getting the woman of my dreams to walk down the aisle is requiring even more good fortune than I ever imagined.

Having settled down to watch Sky Living’s new series about the first year of married life on Monday night, however, I think we’re both having second thoughts.

“The first year of marriage is the toughest,” said narrator Katherine Parkinson by way of introduction, a fact highlighted by clips of newlywed couples arguing with one another and crying. “Is this what it’s going to be like for the rest of my life?” said one woman, whose identity was hidden by having a face full of running mascara.

After this Saving Private Ryan-style opening, the tears in the first episode were mainly of joy as three of the six couples to be featured over the next eight weeks were shown getting married.

BBC1

It’s only natural to compare your relationship to the one on screen and I’d hope people see ours is as loving as that of Victoria and Lewis.

Caroline and Alex we had very little in common with. Caroline lived her life as close to a fairy tale as possible and received a comment from her bridesmaid on her wedding day that she “looked like a Barbie doll” as the highest compliment. Henpecked Alex’s biggest hope was that she’d put the top back on bottles and jars more often.

Then we came to Emily and Rob, a couple I rate most likely to appear in a follow-up Sky Living series Un-hitched (or even Unhinged, which is more likely to be on the Crime Channel).

This was because Rob was Emily’s boss and she had to send him a meeting request if she wanted to talk to him about the wedding plans at any point during the working day, which to workaholic Rob meant anytime he wasn’t asleep.

Emily described their forthcoming matrimony as a “three-point programme of get married, get a house and have children”, to which Rob said she’d made it sound like something given to her by Alcoholics Anonymous. Funny that.