|
|
|
|
Radio station in a knot over wedding dilemma
Not enough quality grooms for high-calibre brides in radio reality show
|
November 21, 2009
By Candice Bailey
Radio station Kaya FM's second risky reality radio marriage is off to a rocky start.
Despite the station's PR disaster when it hosted the first ever radio wedding on the continent last year, it's giving the controversial social experiment a second attempt.
But this week it found out just how tricky the whole exercise can be.
The station had to delay the planned announcement of the female listener selected to be the chosen bride in the reality radio show Two Strangers and a Wedding after it failed to find "suitable" male listeners to be "grooms" from the hundreds of entries sent in since the appeal for entries in September.
After a two-day delay, sufficient suitable grooms had been found and the station was able to announce that Mary, a 27-year-old from Orange Grove in Joburg, who is a personal assistant at a magazine company, would be the bride.
As in last year's competition, Mary will meet her husband for the first time at the altar. She won't know his real name, shoe size or favourite meal.
Meantime, she will interview each of the four men on air and select the one she feels most "connected" with - unlike last year, when there was one groom who had to select his bride from four candidates.
The question on everyone's lips, however, is will this reality radio marriage actually work?
The show's first attempt ended in disaster, with couple Derrick Matthee and Gail Brookstein splitting just a few months after tying the knot.
They had problems from the first week of their marriage, with exes cropping up.
It turned out that Matthee was only after the prizes - a R1.5 million package included the wedding, a honeymoon in Mozambique, a R100 000 cash prize, a free flat for a year and a car each.
Brookstein, however, admitted she had let herself think it was a fairytale marriage and thought she was in love.
And by the looks of things, the latest bride in this experiment is going down the same road.
Speaking to the Saturday Star this week, Mary said: "I am looking for love. I hope this can be my soulmate. I hope this could be love. In the next three weeks my life will turn around.
"I have been trying to find Mr Right. I have gone on lots of dates, but I just haven't found him. I have not had any previous marriage attempts - not even a proposal," she said.
Mary was born in Zimbabwe and moved to South Africa at the age of 13. She admitted this was not the way she had planned her childhood dream of getting married, but took the show as a sign.
"I'm excited, exhausted and have a lot of mixed emotions. The biggest right now is anticipation."
Although she didn't follow the first show from the start, she began watching it after the marriage.
"I wasn't interested in it at the time. I thought the people were very brave, but I think they went into it with the wrong intention. I'm going into it with the right intention. I am nervous, but I have faith that this is God's journey for me. "
Mary has spoken to two of the potential grooms.
"There are a lot of alarm bells from both of them. One has two kids from two different women. I don't know if it's right to bring kids and exes into it. There are still more to go."
Her wedding, scheduled for December 11 at Mary Fitzgerald Square in Newtown and broadcast on Good Morning Gauteng, will have 300 guests. She will be dressed by Bride & Co, and African Romance will provide the custom-made rings. She will even have her very own wedding planner, Nonn Botha, to help her through it all.
Kaya FM spokeswoman Londi Sibisi said the delay was to ensure that the competition was fair. The dozens of groom entries didn't complement the chosen brides, she explained.
"Psychologist and relationship expert Dr Janne Dannerup had advised the station that, compared to the three brilliant, high-calibre brides, it would have been unfair to continue the experiment unless they could be matched to a groom of equal eminence - intellectually, emotionally and of equal values," said Sibisi.
"The tests covered physical and mental health, personality profiling and compatibility."
Kaya FM marketing manager Mark Mdlela said: "We are dealing with real emotions, and our candidates have put themselves out there to find love. We can't do them the injustice of pairing them up with a groom of lesser calibre."
[Email this story...]
[Easy Print...]
|
|
