3 Married At First Sight Filming Secrets You Didn’t Know

5 September 2022, 17:30

UK singletons to wed on first meeting in Married At First Sight on Channel 4

By Kathryn Knight

The Married at First Sight UK contestants do have some rules to follow…

Married at First Sight UK is back in our TV-bingeing schedule and series 7 is underway.

Currently, the new couples, including Pjay and Jess, April and George and Adrian and Thomas, are getting to know each other on-screen after meeting their spouse for the first time at the altar.

After agreeing to get married the couples go on their honeymoon and move in together.

Part of the show also sees weekly dinner parties with all the couples, where they discuss their relationships and how they’re finding the process.

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As we get to know the new couples on-screen, viewers have been wondering how the show is really filmed and what it’s like to be a contestant…

The MAFS UK dinner parties take a whole day to shoot
The MAFS UK dinner parties take a whole day to shoot. Picture: E4
The cast of MAFS UK 2022
The cast of MAFS UK 2022. Picture: E4

The dinner parties take hours to film

Last year’s contestant Amy Christophers has spilled on the infamous dinner parties, revealing she’d start getting ready for the evening at 8am and that they’d head to the venue at 11am as it was an hour-and-a-half journey.

She said on Secure the Insecure podcast: “When you arrive you are interviewed about the dinner party ahead and the drama that you are facing that evening.

"Then when you head into the mixer for drinks beforehand you can feel the tension and know it's going to kick off later.

"After having a couple of drinks I get a taste for it and want to go dancing on the tables and paint the town red or whatever, but you just have to sit there.

"So you get in a slump while you wait two hours in the mixer for them to finish filming and set up the dinner party.”

Alcohol intake is monitored on MAFS UK
Alcohol intake is monitored on MAFS UK. Picture: Instagram

Alcohol intake is monitored

Ex-contestant Bob Voysey told Grazia about couples sneaking alcohol into their bags during dinner parties.

“I think as soon as a bottle of wine was gone, during the first dinner party, they would just replace it,” Bob said. “And then we were smashed, and it ended up in a massive argument. So then the second week, they took away a bit more alcohol. But we all thought "Sod it, we're all going to bring our own drink."'

The show’s producers have said they monitor the contestants’ alcohol intake across the shoot, with their wellbeing prioritised at all times.

The contestants’ marriages aren’t legally binding

The UK version of the show doesn’t include legal marriages, so if they choose to breakup they don’t have to go through a divorce.

Past series included legally-binding marriages but it was eventually changed to follow the Australian format of the show.

In the US, all the couples’ marriages are legally binding.

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