What were these brides thinking? (Four Weddings)

Member Name: Benjiboo

Product:	Four Weddings
Date:	18/08/09 (46 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Great for discussion

Disadvantages: Crass reality TV

If you have seen Come Dine With Me then this programme follows a very similar format except with weddings rather than dinner parties. This is a Living TV show an hour in length. Each week four brides (or the occasional gay man having a civil ceremony) compete with each other as to who has the best wedding. The winner gets an all expenses paid honeymoon.

The show starts with a brief introduction of each bride and what their wedding is about (including the budget) and then moves on to show the four brides meeting for the first time and discussing their weddings with each other. Then each wedding is shown in turn; each wedding is also attended by the other three brides who judge how good they think it is. Each of the three brides scores the wedding on four categories: the dress, the food, the venue and the overall presentation. Each bride gives a score out of 10 giving a total score out of 30 for each category, except for the overall presentation (this is scored out of 20, total 60). Therefore the maximum overall score is 150. Then after all weddings are done the brides are gathered together and the winner is revealed by a blacked out car pulling up and inside is the groom of the winning bride; it's after this that we see the full score breakdown for each wedding.

As with all these types of shows the producers intentionally chose brides with very contrasting budgets and ideas for the perfect wedding; this is very cleverly edited at the beginning of the show to demonstrate this point. As always taking such stark contrasts helps to elicit stronger emotions and opinions from the contestants. The amount of screen time given to each wedding is very brief the majority of the time is showing the three judging brides and their reactions to and opinions of the wedding. Despite their vast differences these brides are, of course, all a certain type of person. The type of person I mean is the sort of attention seeking Big Brother applicants who are desperate for their 15 minutes of fame. I would but these brides even lower on the list of desperados than BB contestants as inviting a 2-bit TV crew and a panel of 3 strangers to score, what is supposed to be, the most romantic and special day of one's life is utterly crass and gives me little hope for the marriages we are witnessing the beginnings of.

My distaste for the brides aside I do find this fascinating to watch; much in the same way as Victorians used to visit lunatic asylums I suppose. The brides can be very entertaining to watch. It's great to see the many varied types of wedding I could have in future, or more accurately seeing all things I don't want. Also, being a dooyoo reviewer I do of course like to give my opinion and listen to others: that's why this show is better to watch with someone or discuss the next day at work. Even if you don't know anybody that watches you can still give your opinion by going online during the programme and voting for your favourite (the viewer's result is also announced at the very end of the show). This also made more watchable by the fact that this is only an hour long and every episode is separate.

Summary: Alright to kill an hour