Don’t Tell the Bride
Don't Tell the Bride should really be on Seven, but it's good trash telly on TEN.
- Published by David Knox
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- Filed under Reviews, Top Stories
Count the amount of times you hear OMG in the first episode of Don’t Tell the Bride.
And then double it for the amount you’ll probably be saying on the couch.
Straight up, this show is pure trash telly, and it knows it. That’s what makes it a winner.
This show is based on a UK format in which couples who can’t afford a pricetag wedding sign up for one paid for by TV, but the catch is that the grooms make all the decisions in just three weeks.
The first couple in question is 28 year old security guard Aaron and 25 marketing coordinator Melissa. The couple have been living together for 3 years and engaged for 1. Mel seems like such a nice girl, but TV has a way of making you sound that little bit more suburban….
Melissa is sent to spend 3 weeks living with her mother while Aaron and his best mate plot a $25,000 wedding, including venue, wedding dress, ring and more.
Being a snowboarding fan, Aaron settles on a “white wedding” at Thredbo, 7 hours drive from Sydney. And he chooses on an outdoor winter wedding, with no back-up plan for bad weather. The reception will be in one of the nearby hotels with its overstocked bar.
While Aaron plots the wedding (which includes a visit to The Reject Shop for decorations), we watch Mel, her mother and bridesmaid visiting the kind of choices she would make: the dream venue, trying on the perfect dress, choosing an ideal reception location. All of it is poles apart from the decisions Aaron is stumbling through while having a few beers along the way.
Instead he chooses a bloke’s idea of a perfect wedding dress (the most expensive, the most over the top), books a plane to fly Melissa to Thredbo on the wedding day -there goes the budget- and chooses a totally gross American Football sports ring.
He also has to plan the Buck’s and Hen’s nights. Guess which one doesn’t go very well.
On the day of the wedding it’s minus two degrees at Thredbo. Watch for the shot of grandma wrapped in blankets on a chair on the snow, while waiting for the bride who is late.
“I can’t feel my fingers,” says one bridesmaid.
The question is whether it will all be alright when Melissa turns up or whether she’ll crack it.
Narrating this amusing trainwreck (which clocks in a little too long at one hour) is Kate Ritchie. Clearly she has only been roped in after everything has been filmed. We never see her with the couples, which is disappointing. In fact we only see her twice, bookending the show and she has more make up than a high-class … well I’m too polite to say the rest.
Frankly this feels like the perfect show that Seven would screen. Four Weddings and Please Marry My Boy has company, but this time it’s on TEN.
If those shows were your thang, then Don’t Tell the Bride is for you.
It may even redeem the network for Yasmin’s Getting Married. Nahhhhh.
Don’t Tell the Bride airs 7:30pm Mondays on TEN.
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- Tagged with Don't Tell the Bride, Four Weddings, Please Marry My Boy
8 Responses
It’s a low class version of a Wedding Show.I was having a good laugh at a list of what Men would do if they were in charge if it was up to them to arrange the whole event and it’s disgraceful.I have been to a Wedding as a kid a hell of a long time ago and it was nothing like this.
I’m the first to admit that I loved Please Marry My Boy and Four Weddings… The problem with Don’t Tell The Bride is that (at least in the pilot anyway) the couple were not likeable. The bride came across as a whiny brat and the groom seemed to be a bit of a dumbass. To enjoy reality TV in my opinion, you have to at least like the people you’re watching…
This is a stupid show about stupid people and the stupid choices they make: publicly. The show is a complete home run. It offers nothing and delivers in spades!! I was on the floor laughing my left lung up. Can’t wait for next week. When it’s finished it’s third season can we have an all-star challenge?
I think, The Moops, it’s a bit like The Shire. People watch them because people who are “undignified” and with “so little class” make good TV if you want to watch something that makes you feel superior. Personally I like to watch wedding shows because they never fail to reaffirm for me that my decision to stay a million miles away from weddings is the right one.
GO! Is currently showing the UK version on Tuesdays at 8:30pm. Its ok, but I think I can only watch it a couple of times.
Some TV shows fit the “It’s so bad, it’s good” tag. From the ads for this I’ve seen, I don’t think this show is that fortunate. “It’s so bad” seems to suffice. Mind you, it hasn’t started yet so who knows?
David, there’s a mistake in your sub-header for this story (when read from the main page)… think you must mean: “… should be on Seven but great trash telly on TEN…” Cheers.
I can’t stand courtship shows and wedding shows. Uggghhhh!! How can people be so undignified and have so little class that they allow themselves to be filmed for such audio-visual bilge??? Kate Ritchie must be really hard up for a gig, that’s all I can say. I had the misfortune to catch some of The Farmer Wants A Wife last week. It lived way down to my expectations, it was absolutely horrendous. This new one on Ten may have more of an amusement factor, but ick, I just hate this genre of show.