‘Love Is Blind’: Rules of the Pods, Weddings and More
'Love Is Blind' Rules: How Dates Are Set Up in the Pods, Wedding Budgets and More
Love Is Blind is a unique reality show for several reasons — but the Netflix series has rules just like other dating experiments.The series follows couples who get engaged after communicating via soundproof pods and never seeing each other's faces."We didn't want any sound to bleed through any other pods. We basically had a small speaker in the front wall, and you would hear the other person who was in the other pod. [There are] no producers in there, there's nobody else," creator Chris Coelen told Variety in 2020. "It's just you and the other person. That's it."Coelen later emphasized during a 2022 Variety interview that the producers "do a lot of diligence" during the casting process, but don't try to influence contestants once the cameras are rolling.""We don't have any control over what happens. We don't try to exert or sway over any of the participants," he said. "We won't ever tell them what to say, what to do, how to think, how to feel. This is entirely documenting their real journey."Keep scrolling to see the rules behind Love Is Blind:
Credit: Mitchell Haaseth/NetflixProducers Like to Decide Who Speaks 1st on the Wedding Day
Coelen told Variety in April 2023 that producers usually decide whether the bride or groom will speak first at the ceremony.
"We put our finger into the wind and see which way it's blowing. This documentation of their experience is a moment in their life. The choice that they make at the altar is for the rest of their life, either way. We don't want to influence their decision at all," he told the outlet. "I go see them on the day of their wedding and I don't even ask them what they're going to say. I do not want to know."
The TV producer added: "We want it to be real. I always tell them, 'From a cynical producer's point of view, I literally do not care [what their answer is]. If we have delivered the audience a very compelling journey, then let's lean into the authenticity of that. But for you, you live with that forever.' The only thing that matters to me is that each person makes the right decision for themselves."
Credit: Courtesy of NetflixDoes Geography Matter to Casting?
While Love Is Blind season 4 was set in Seattle, several of its participants lived a couple of hours away. (Kwame AppiahChelsea Griffin, for their part, notably clashed over whether or not the groom would leave Portland to join his soon-to-be wife in Seattle once they got married.)
"We always try to make the pool of potential participants as broad as we possibly can make it. So you're in a specific region like Seattle and we felt, in casting, Portland is only around a two-hour drive," Coelen told Variety in 2023. "We felt that it was helpful to open up that aperture of casting to be able to include people from as far away as Portland. It felt reasonable to us that if you fell in love and you were within a two-hour radius driving, you can make that work if you want it to. ... I think the reason to do that was just to open up the pool of potential participants as wide as we possibly could."
Credit: NetflixHow Pod Dates Are Set Up
Coelen told Bustle in 2020 that the initial dates are similar to "speed-dating," noting that they spent seven to 10 minutes together. However, as the connections deepen, "They get to pick the people they want to spend more time with. They make the decisions themselves. ... Over time they'll spend many hours together multiple times per day."
During an interview with Refinery29 , season 1 contestant Cameron Hamilton added, "The dates were organized for us [at the beginning] and we would rate at the end of the day who we liked the most and the least. [The producers] would then use those rankings to figure out dates for the subsequent days. As the days went on, the length of the dates went longer but the number of people you saw got shorter."
Toward the end of the 10 days, there isn't a strict time limit regarding the pods.
Cameron is still married to Lauren Speed, whom he met on the dating show.
Credit: Patrick Wymore/NetflixThe Length of the Experiment
Coelen revealed in a February 2024 Netflix Tudum that the pod portion of the experiment is 10 days.
"They talk about the deepest things in every possible way about every conceivable subject. They're trying to identify every single thing that might be important to talk about before they choose to marry someone," he says. "After the fact, people have said they know — not just the person they're engaged to, but multiple people — better than they've ever known anyone else. Better than they know their parents. Their siblings. It's insane. They really do fall in love."
While there are 40-50 people in the original cast, the majority of the experiment ends up being 20-25 people after initial connections are made.
Filming for season 1 was a total of 38 days, meaning the couples are together for 28 days outside of the pods.
Credit: Patrick Wymore/NetflixThe Living Arrangements
"The first four days we filmed on average I'd say 18 to 20 hours. We slept in trailers and they were correctional facility beds. The design was to just strip us down from our comfort level," season 1 contestant Kenny Barnes told Refinery29.
However, for season 2, they upgraded the contestants to hotel rooms, with producers leading them to and from the pods.
While Lauren compared the living arrangements from season 1 to a sorority, Jessica noted she did a lot of journaling, explaining, "I wanted to remember things because every day is like a month in there and so much can change."
The stars also confirmed that they can request food and drink items to have during the experiment, but they cannot have their phones or internet access.
Credit: NetflixThe Engagement Rules
The couples can get engaged at any point during the 10 days — and the show provides the ring. "If they want to propose and want to have a ring to give, we provide—up to a certain level—a ring for them to do that with," Coelen told Variety. "If they choose to do that, we actually give choices. There are, like, 10 or 12 different styles and colors. It's up to them, they don't have to. There's no pressure to do that."
Credit: NetflixThe Producers' Involvement
The female contestants and the male contestants each have teams of producers, but according to Coelen, producers don't interrupt the couples in the pods.
"They'd help facilitate needs for people, so it would feel like dating. For example, if someone said, 'I love Italian food and I'd love to have an Italian dinner with my date.' We would get some lasagna and arrange that," he said. "Obviously they can't eat it together but they could say, 'Oh, this lasagna's really cheesy,' or whatever. If they want to draw pictures together, whatever they wanted to do, we really wanted them to feel like it's their own thing."
Season 2's Sal Perez told E! News in February 2022 that cast members are given "talking points" if they need them.
"There were kind of topics for the day," Kyle Abrams from the same season added while talking to the outlet. "It was good if there was a lull in conversation, you just refer to the little notebook and you can drum up conversation."
Season 5 star Izzy Zapata opened up about one of the suggested topics during an October 2023 appearance on Nick Viall's "Viall Files" podcast.
"Through the process, [producers] give us guidance on what to talk about, like, one day will be finances, one day will be, like, values [and] families and one day there's sex," he explained, noting that "sex day" was the most fun. "It's a time to get to know one another in terms of kinks, lights on [or] lights off. ... Some of the girls are curious, I will say, [but] we'd have a little bit of help [from producers] along the way."
Credit: Adrian S. Burrows Sr./NetflixWho Pays for the Weddings?
Netflix only covers the "basics" for the weddings, with a rep for the streaming service noting, "But because these are their real weddings, it's up to them as to how to spend their money."
The creator also told Women's Health: "If they wanted to spend their own money, or try to enhance it within reason, we would certainly allow that. We would never put any constraints on them unless it was something we couldn't accommodate within the show. That was really up to them."
Credit: Aarón Ortega/NetflixThe Final Decision
The show is designed to have the couples make their final decision at the altar. Coelen told E! News that the cast members "certainly could choose to do whatever they wanted to do" when it comes to skipping the wedding day. Jessica Batten from season 1, however, claimed to EW that she wasn't allowed to quit during season 1.
"I definitely had a conversation about leaving and I wasn't able to do that," she said. "My dog got sick too, and almost died during the show. I had so much other stuff going on."
Credit: Courtesy of NetflixWhere Do the Engagement Rings Come From?
Unless a Love Is Blind groom brings an heirloom ring from home, the show will provide a diamond to all of the engaged couples.
"Whatever they choose, we pay for. Whatever we pay for, they keep, regardless of engagement ending," a spokesperson for Kinetic Content told PS in 2024.
Coelen, for his part, previously told Entertainment Tonight in 2020, that each man got a choice of rings.
"Since they were in the facility and weren't able to go out into the "real world" at that point, they couldn't have been able to go [to a shop]," he said. "We wouldn't have allowed them to at that point. It's obviously such a gigantic moment in people's lives that we wanted it to be as authentic to them as it possibly could be. "
Credit: Scott Green/NetflixThe Show Pays for the Weddings
While the couples get to plan their individual weddings, they luckily don't have to fit the entire bill.
"My team is designing five weddings, and they're back-to-back-to-back-to-back," event stylist Slomique Hawrylo told Tudum in 2023. "It's one wedding on a Monday, one wedding on a Tuesday. There's literally not a breather. I'm doing five weddings in five days. So do I sleep? No."
Hawrylo adheres to a budget for all of the weddings, only billing the couples if "there are particular things they really want that I wouldn't know how to get."
To account for the budgets covered by LiB, all weddings are intimate in size and are only slated to have room for 80 to 100 guests.
