Don't Tell the Bride contestants expose 'artificial' show: 'I have never been physically sick with stress before'

Ceremonies were so centred around filming there wasn't even time for family photos

It will come as little surprise that fiendishly addictive BBC schedule-filler Don’t Tell the Bride isn’t all it purports to be, but the ins and outs of its artifices are pretty damn interesting.

A host of brides who have appeared on the show dished to the Liverpool Echo this week, with Nicole Davies telling the paper: “At first, it was good and we both loved filming together but after a while it was a bit intense.”

“Hellish” was the word another bride, Melissa Lindsay-Mensah, used, who regretted taking part in the show, describing filming as “three weeks of blood, sweat and tears” and lamenting that she didn’t even get to capture any family photos on the wedding day.

Her ceremony and reception were apparently entirely centred around filming and she had to get the ferry across the Mersey eight times so the crew could get the right footage.

“We had a cameraman following us and filming us every day from 8am to 12am,” she said. “We could barely work and had to send our son off to Ireland because we couldn’t look after him - it was horrendous.”

“Although it is your day, it is on their schedule and they have a set plan. The photographer was leaving at 8.30pm, and we never managed to get a picture of everyone all together because we had to film.”

Most people sign up to the show in order to get their wedding paid for, but while producers gave her £12,000, Melissa and her partner ended up spending £18,000 flying family to Ireland at short notice.

“I felt quite vulnerable and, looking back, I would have done things differently”, she said.

“I let the team have so much control over my life … I have never been physically sick with exhaustion and stress before. I regret doing it... but it was lovely, we had a nice day and we got married but... it is artificial.”

They should have expected this of course, and it doesn't stop the show from being brilliant schadenfreude.

A BBC spokesperson told the Echo: “The constraints and expectations placed upon of each couple as a condition of their being accepted as contributors on the series is explained in detail, in advance of filming and throughout. Any details covered by the signed contract between the contributor and the producer are confidential.”