THIS AFTERNOON, A woman chose between two men she had never seen before and married one of them. Live on an Irish radio station.
The Three Strangers And A Wedding stunt – billed as ‘the world’s greatest social experiment’ – was run by iRadio.
Bride ‘Juno’ – the names were kept secret, to keep the participants from Googling each other – had to pick between two grooms. She had never seen their faces, only spoken to them on the phone and on a two excruciating ‘dinner dates’ where the pair had a screen between them.
She made the choice live on radio and YouTube stream this afternoon. It was… all really weird. Here’s how it went down:
Both of the grooms wore creepy face masks for the ceremony
Known only by the names they were given for the competition, Janus and Jupiter, the pair just had to sit there awkwardly until the bride appeared.
Earlier, we had learned that Jupiter had TWO postgraduate degrees but hadn’t travelled as much as he liked. While Janus had worked in a hospital in a previous line of work. Riveting, no?
The bride arrived! We saw her face for the first time, and learned that her name was Anne Marie.
Then, she chose one of them. Not a moment of hesitation. “I pick Jupiter,” she said.
Janus was ushered out of the room. (“He was very disappointed,” one of the presenters said.)
We found out that the groom’s name was Nigel.
And then they just… got married, in a humanist ceremony
Their vows were a bit different, though
Anne Marie and Nigel lit a unity candle, and exchanged vows. Anne Marie said:
I’ll do my best to be your other half / Though I don’t have the patience of a saint. Not with you, at you I’ll sometimes laugh / But I’ll try and learn restraint.
While Nigel’s vow took a different tone: “As freely as God has given me life, I join my life to yours,” he said.
Awkward for Nigel.
(Nigel also suffered because his head was cut off from most of the YouTube live stream.)
Wait, what was the point of all this again?
“To find out if love is blind,” according to iRadio’s publicity materials. Or, as we reported at the time, so that “a couple can get to know each other without the pressures of looks or any other distractions”.
The station said there were a “shocking” number of entries.
So, did they kiss?
Yes, eventually. The pair said ‘I do’, promising to be faithful to each other for the whole of their life together. And they smooched, FINALLY, after an awkward delay for the photos.
Then there was a party! They cut the cake…
They drank fizzy wine…
And they had an arms-length first dance:
Currently, the pair are getting to know each other. And having what we can only imagine is the most awkward round of family introductions of all time.
More updates as we get them.
