Love was very much in the air – or, indeed, in the pods – during season three of Love Is Blind UK.
In the early stages of this year’s season, viewers saw six different couples getting engaged without ever seeing each other, before heading to the next phase of the “experiment”.
However, what you might not realise is that there were actually a total of 14 engagements in the pods this time around, with eight of them not making it to our screens.
This is a record number of matches for the UK version of the Netflix reality franchise, beating season one’s rumoured 11 and season two’s six engagements (only seven and five of which, respectively, made it to air).
Speaking to The Mirror, executive producer Nazleen Karim and series editor David Cheesman opened up about the decision to edit eight engagements out of this year’s series.
“When there are more engagements than we can physically follow, we have to make difficult editorial choices,” Nazleen explained. “We’re looking for a range of different relationship journeys and stories that together capture the full experience of the experiment.”
He added that cutting out couples’ storylines wasn’t a “reflection” on their relationships, nor did it mean that their romances didn’t continue outside of the pods.
Instead, he insisted that the show just doesn’t have the time to explore every relationship formed during the dates, with Dave agreeing: “It’s never an easy decision and we wouldn’t want to diminish the love those other couples have formed.
“We’ve never had as many as 14 engagements which is why we ended up following six couples this time as opposed to five.”
Thanks to its combination of “natural drama and love, sexiness, chemistry and humour”, he believes this series is potentially the strongest.
“Every season brings something different, but this one has some of the most surprising twists, emotional moments and unforgettable characters we’ve seen,” Dave enthused.
Meanwhile, hosts, Matt and Emma Willis, also revealed their thoughts behind the record number of engagements.
“There are clearly a lot of thirsty people in the UK! I think we both got a strong sense that people really were there to get married,” Matt said. “They weren’t just going in to see what this was all about – they wanted to find a husband or wife.”
“Maybe the Raye song Where Is My Husband! was the inspiration,” he quipped.
Find out which couples do make it down the aisle when Love Is Blind UK concludes on Netflix on 26 August, with the reunion special then streaming on 30 August.
