Sue and Alex Tatham’s wedding was broadcast on a special episode called “Blind Date Wedding of the Year”. The couple are still happily married
Sue’s friends submitted a letter without her knowledge, saying she would like to go on the biggest dating show on TV.
Alex was at work when a colleague came around holding papers in the air. Instead of auditing payroll, they spent the afternoon filling in application forms.
It is 40 years since TV juggernaut Blind Date first aired, and Sue and Alex Tatham were the first couple who met on the show to get married, in a ceremony broadcast to around 17 million people.
They both said they didn’t go on the show looking for love, but love was what they found, and they have now been married for 34 years.
Handout
The couple recently celebrated their 34th wedding anniversary
After Blind Date came a string of modern dating shows following a similar concept, including Love is Blind, First Dates and even Love Island.
Now, Blind Date is set for a relaunch on Disney+, “reimagined for a contemporary audience” according to the streaming site.
So, how successful can a blind date be?
‘Was it as glamorous as it looked? No!’
ITV/ Shutterstock
Sue and Alex meet for the first time on Blind Date
In 1985, Cilla Black hosted a pilot episode of a shiny new show inspired by a concept from America known as “The Dating Game”.
It went on to dominate Saturday-night TV, with millions of viewers tuning in to watch one person pick a date from three suitors hidden behind a screen.
When Sue appeared on Blind Date, finding a boyfriend was not her priority.
“It was because it was all so new – the birth of reality TV,” she said. “It was exciting and that’s why I really wanted to go, to see how it all was. Was it as glamorous as it looked? No!”
Alex said Blind Date was “a very hot TV show at the time. So it’d be a bit like now, if someone’s saying, who wants to be on Love Island?”
Around six months after applying, Sue and Alex were called in for auditions – Sue in Birmingham, Alex in London.
“They asked me questions like ‘If you were a fruit, what would you be?” Sue remembered. “What sort of animal would you be?”
Both Alex and Sue were given a slot to appear on the show, but Alex could not make it. Sue had her slot rescheduled too.
Sue said she spent the day with the other two girls Alex would choose from, getting to know them well – and that neither she nor Alex were allowed to have friends in the audience in case they influenced their decisions.
She also recalled the team’s efforts to make sure she and Alex did not bump into each other ahead of filming, which meant her diving into a cupboard if he was walking along the corridor.
“Great, I thought – it’s a real surprise!”
‘I had no idea why I picked Sue – it was just eenie meeny miny moe’
“It was a long old day, but exciting. And Cilla sort of wafted around a bit,” said Sue.
“Coming to you in curlers, putting you at your ease,” Alex added.
Sue and the other women Alex would pick from were given his questions in advance.
They wrote answers which were scanned and edited. “One of them – and it definitely wasn’t me – the question was about going to Australia and she said, ‘I’d like to you to rub suntan lotion on the bits I can’t reach’.
“And they said no, you can’t say that – that was out! It just shows what a change perhaps in the attitudes of today,” Sue said.
According to the Official Cilla Black website, British television watchdogs were initially worried about Blind Date’s sexual connotations – but Cilla’s involvement reassured them.
Alex remembered the “illusion of television” being shattered quickly when he saw the sliding door on the set, used to separate the chooser and the three suitors.
“The sliding door, which looks very chic – it’s basically a bloke at the back pulling a bit of cardboard.”
Handout
After her first date with Alex, Sue told Cilla on Blind Date: “If in 10 years’ time I found myself married to Alex, it wouldn’t be such a bad thing”.
“When I picked Sue, number two from the West Midlands, I had absolutely no idea why I’d done that,” said Alex. “It was just eenie meeny miny moe.”
On the show, the newly matched couple picked their first date activity at random. Sue and Alex got a medieval banquet in Ireland. The couple said they were put in hotels five miles apart.
“At the end of the date, we said we’d quite like to go to a nightclub,” said Sue. “We’d been getting on so well.”
Only when they asked the production team, the answer was no, the date was over and they had to go back to their separate hotels.
“I think these days, they basically film you getting in the same room!” Alex said. “That just shows the big change in reality TV.”
‘Blind Date Wedding of the Year’
Handout/Alex and Sue Tatham
‘It was an amazing day’: Sue and Alex on their wedding day, with guest Cilla Black
If a couple seemed to be getting on well, Cilla would ask, “Do I need to buy a new hat?” Well, in Alex and Sue’s case, she did – a smart blue number.
“When we first said that we were going to get married, they were very calm about it,” Alex said, talking about discussions with the team at Blind Date. “They said ‘Oh, we’d just love to take a video of you coming out of the church.'”
By the end, he said there were lots of TV crews, police and thousands of people outside the church.
Sue and Alex married in a special episode called ‘Blind Date Wedding of the Year’, broadcast on London Weekend Television.
“Imagine if you’re nervous about making a best man or a groom speech in front of 300 of your best friends,” said Alex. “Then imagine making it in front of millions.
“It was an amazing day. It did allow us to invite just about everyone we’ve ever met to our wedding, which also helped.
“They wore the brightest clothes they could because you wanted to get your face on TV. It looked like a really good edition of Songs of Praise.”
ITV/ Shutterstock
Sue and Alex returned to the show with their first baby
‘I am just lucky to have picked her’
“We found we had plenty in common,” said Alex. “I think that when you grow together, as any couple will, you’ll find that actually you begin to share a set of values.
“Open honesty is the best thing,” said Sue. “And be kind.”
“Once you have someone with a similar set of values, boyfriend or girlfriend, no matter how you meet, that’s a really good basis for any relationship,” said Alex.
Handout/Alex and Sue Tatham
Sue and Alex’s children are now grown up
“The love of family, I think that’s a really important factor. The caring of every part of the family and friends. Ambitions to get on in life, the joy of going out and having a good time.
“She is sensitive and kind, a wonderful mother and still extremely beautiful. In fact most people fall in love with her, so it wasn’t hard for me. I am just lucky to have picked her.
“To this day, we say we love each other a lot to each other – and still do.”
High school girls are less likely than boys to marry in the future for the first time, the Pew Research Center reported Friday. File Photo by Ym Yik/EPA
Nov. 14 (UPI) — Girls who are high school seniors for the first time are less likely to marry than boys of the same age, according to the Pew Research Center.
The Pew Research Center partnered with the University of Michigan to poll high school seniors in 2023 and on Friday announced that two-thirds said they likely will get married.
Boys, though, were more likely to get married than girls, with 74% of boys saying so versus 61% of girls.
The change represents the first time that more boys than girls looked favorably upon marriage in the future, according to Pew.
In 1993, 81% of girls polled said they wanted to marry in the future, versus 76% of boys affirming so.
A majority of high school seniors polled said they likely will marry and raise children at some time, but the percentages of those saying so declined significantly over three decades.
That percentage is down from 80% in 1993, but the percentages of those who have no idea or do not intend to ever marry have risen.
Among respondents, 24% said they don’t know if they will get married, which is up from 16% 30 years earlier.
Another 9% said they won’t get married, which nearly doubled from 5% three decades ago.
Among those who say they likely will get married, most said they either are very likely, 48%, or fairly likely, 25%, to want to have children when married.
That’s a total of 73% versus 82% in 1993, when 64% said they very likely would want to have children and 18% said they were fairly likely to do so when married.
Of those intending to marry, more than half, 51%, said they very likely would stay married to the same person, and another 30% said they are fairly likely to do so, for a total of 80%.
Those numbers are down from 64% and 18%, respectively, and a cumulative total of 82% in 1993.
Married at First Sight UK couple Leisha and Reiss have confirmed they are no longer together after the groom decided to end their marriage following the final vows
22:26, 13 Nov 2025Updated 22:31, 13 Nov 2025
Married at First Sight UK turned emotional during the reunion special(Image: MAFS)
The E4 reality show, which has become one of the most talked-about dating experiments on telly, has kept viewers hooked for ten weeks.
One couple who’ve had a rollercoaster journey throughout the series are Leisha and Reiss.
The bride even found herself in hot water with co-stars Leah and Leigh after she shared a smooch with the latter during a day out with the cast.
Despite their turbulent time on the TV show, the couple made it to the final vows where they had to decide whether to stay together or part ways.
During their final vows, the couple voiced their worries about whether their relationship was robust enough to last, reports OK!.
To add to the drama, Leisha had already confessed her love for Reiss, but he was moving at a slower pace and chose not to reciprocate.
No one expected Reiss to commit to Leisha at the final ceremony, but he shocked everyone by agreeing that their marriage was far from over.
After a moment of uncertainty, they both confirmed that they wanted to continue their marriage beyond the experiment.
However, it seems the couple couldn’t make things work in the real world. During the first part of the eagerly awaited reunion on Thursday (November 13) night, Leisha broke down as she confessed she still loves Reiss.
Just before reuniting with her fellow castmates, Leisha confessed: “When we left the experiment, I was worried that I was more into the marriage than he was but we both worked hard to make it work.”
Reiss explained to the camera: “Since leaving the experiment, Leisha came down to see me and then I went up to Scotland.
“We had some cracking times and she is a beautiful girl inside and out but sadly we couldn’t make things work. I’ve not seen Leisha since it ended.”
An emotional Leisha couldn’t hold back her tears as she admitted: “I am devastated that my married with Reiss hasn’t worked out because I still love Reiss and I think about him everyday.”
She added: “So right now I’m feeling really sad because I really wanted it to work and I put my heart and soul into it and it just wasn’t reciprocated.”
Married at First Sight UK is available to stream on Channel 4
Ofcom has received more than 100 complaints from Married At First Sight viewers over the way groom Ashley was treated during his time on the hit E4 reality series
13:14, 05 Nov 2025Updated 13:14, 05 Nov 2025
Ofcom has received more than 100 complaints from Married At First Sight fans over the way a groom was treated by experts on the hit E4 show(Image: Channel 4)
Ofcom has received more than 100 complaints from Married At First Sight fans over the way a groom was treated. Earlier in this series of the hit E4 reality show. viewers watched as midwife Grace ‘tied the knot’ with Ashley but she was visibly not very keen from the start.
The couple made it past the initial wedding stage of the experiment, but various issues kept cropping up as they tried to embark on their new relationship and it all ended after one final argument that took place at a dinner party.
She added: “I expect you to act like a grown man capable of self-control. Sponsored by Canesten Duo.” The pair have been notably absent at various points within the series, and in the end, Ashley removed his wedding band when he decided that ‘couldn’t do anymore‘ for her without her taking issue with it as she accused him of ‘twisting’ everything.
But viewers have taken issue with the way that experts Mel Schilling, Paul C Brunson and Charlene Douglas seemingly enabled Grace’s behaviour during her time on camera. A spokesperson for Ofcom confirmed: “Complaints related to the experts allegedly enabling Grace’s treatment of Ashley.” In total, the regulator received 166 complaints from angry viewers.
It comes just one day after Grace took to social media to hit out at her ex regarding their final argument. She said: “I expect you to accept no for an answer. I expect you to prioritise my discomfort over your desire for sex. I expect you to act like a grown man capable of self-control. Sponsored by Canesten Duo.”
Things went from bad to worse for the couple during Wife Swap week, when Ashley admitted that he was ‘happier’ when his bride was not around. On the verge of tears, he explained: “I’d hate to hurt Grace’s feelings. I just feel like I can’t give any more to this. So I have to be selfish and put myself first. Grace then admitted: “I would have really liked if this had worked out I think we recognise now there was never anyway it was going to (work). But yeah, you do know that deep down.”
When viewers first met Ashley and Grace, she refused to accept a kiss on the lips when they were pronounced as husband and wife. Things got even more heated between the pair at the dinner following the wedding, when Ashley admitted that he had been raised with ‘old-fashioned’ morals and believed that a man should be the breadwinner. Grace was visibly shocked at this revelation, and in a confessional, she fumed: “God, here we go!”
Later on, Grace’s friend Georgina interrogated Ashley over his outlook on life and when he suggested he was not necessarily a feminist, she raged that someone like that was not going to be a match for Grace.
She said: “My advice was, she wants to know you respect her.” She then relayed her concerns to Grace, but insisted she had managed to warm to Ashley by explaining to him just what she thought a feminist was. This whole scene did not go down well with some viewers either, with one writing: “Grace & her friends seem like the type to bring about their own misery,” and another slamming it as the ‘most insufferable conversation’ they had ever heard.
Viewers will have to wait to see just how things pan out between Ashley and Grace on the next episode, but the trailer for next week teased that things might not be looking so good.
In a short clip, Grace raged: “Every now and then he says something, and it’s like ‘Do you know how that sounds?!'”
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