40 Surprising 'Love Is Blind' Facts You Probably Didn't Know

No one was forced to propose.

Proposing to someone only a few days after meeting them is already pretty crazy, but without ever seeing them is a whole new level. The show's creator made it clear that no one from production put pressure on the couples to get engaged. "Nobody had to do anything," creator and executive producer Chris Coelen told Variety (opens in new tab). "It was if you find someone, if you choose."

The show was filmed in 2018.

In an interview with Refinery29 (opens in new tab), cast member Damian Powers confirmed that the show was, in fact, filmed in October 2018, meaning the couples who said "I do" on the show had to keep their marriage a secret for 14 months and celebrated their one-year anniversary before the show even aired.

The singles meet everyone of the opposite gender.

When the singles were just getting to know one another, the pod dates were 8-10 minutes each and set up by producers. "In the beginning, just from a practical standpoint, we have to give them certain time limits just so we can get them through and they have a chance to talk to everyone.," Coelen told E! News (opens in new tab).

Dates could last for hours in the pod.

As cast members started establishing connections their dates got longer and longer. "They were there pretty much 24-7. It's funny because we would encourage them to take [breaks], 'You gotta eat! You gotta get some sleep!' But they didn't want to, they wanted to stay in those pods," Coelen told Variety (opens in new tab).

The male and female cast members live separately.

This is for obvious reasons: To ensure that the singles don't see each other before getting engaged. There was a different team of producers for each gender too.

There was a lot of downtime outside of the pods.

To pass the time, cast member Kenny Barnes said the guys would have plank competitions, go for runs, and even cook together. Jessica Batten told Refinery29 (opens in new tab) that she would journal every day. "I wanted to remember things because every day is like a month in there and so much can change."

The accommodations were far from cozy.

It looks like the cast was living the dream, moving from plush pods to meticulously-decorated living quarters, but the sleeping arrangements were a far cry from luxury: "We slept in trailers and they were correctional facility beds. The design was to just strip us down from our comfort level," Barnes told Refinery29 (opens in new tab).

Outside communication was forbidden.

In order to give their full focus to the task at hand, a.k.a. finding a spouse, the cast members had their phones and other electronic devices confiscated before they entered the pods.

The pod's sound system was state-of-the-art.

With the experiment eliminating sight from the equation, it was important that the cast members could hear each other very well. The pod was built with soundproof walls and a speaker at the front that connected with the adjacent pod. "We didn’t want any sound to bleed through any other pods," Coelen told Variety (opens in new tab).

Contestants could request food and drinks.

When cast members aren't allowed to leave the set, it can make them a bit stir crazy. Producers did their best to fulfill requests from the singles. "If you wanted a special snack they'd go run and get it. Bailey's and coffee was my go-to," Barnes told Refinery29 (opens in new tab)

Producers were also available to help cast members fulfill anything they needed for dates, from board games to special meals. "[Cast members would] say, 'I'd love to have a dinner of lasagna with this person. So, we'd get them some lasagna,” Coelen told OprahMag.com (opens in new tab).

The cast didn't have set questions to ask each other.

Again, the producers wanted to interfere as little as possible. The singles were free to ask anything they wanted. Sometimes that led to great connections...and other times not so much. "And you see on the show, some people decided to [ask] 'How tall are you, what do you look like?' Other people were like, 'Why would I ever do that? That's not the point of this,'" Coelen told Variety (opens in new tab).

The producers didn't meddle with relationships...

After all, the whole idea behind the show is for the cast members to create genuine emotional connections. "They were never interrupted in terms of like a producer saying, 'Hey, talk about this, talk about that,' they just did what they wanted to do," Coelen told Variety (opens in new tab).

...But producers did listen in.

"Lauren and I had bonded over our love of Hennessy at one point. We went into the pod one day and then there was Hennessy in there for both of us. [The producers] listened,” Cameron Hamilton told Refinery29 (opens in new tab).

Cast members were allowed to describe their appearence.

Vanessa and Nick Lachey told the hosts of People Now that some of the contestants would use celebrities to describe to their date what they looked like. And, according to Vanessa, it wasn’t always a close resemblance (opens in new tab).

The singles barely slept...

The combination of uncomfortable sleeping accommodations and adrenaline led to little sleep. "We're getting four hours of sleep on cots. We'd wake up and go for runs. Like, 'we've got to get blood flow going or we're gonna lose our minds,'" Barnes told Refinery29 (opens in new tab).

...But they could nap in the pods.

How do you kill time on a date when you know you're not interested? "Some people actually did take naps in the pods cause they knew they weren't going to get together," Hamilton told Refinery29 (opens in new tab).

The cast members were logging 18-hour days.

When watching the show, viewers only see short snippets of conversations inside and out of the pods, but in reality the singles were filming for up to 20 hours per day (opens in new tab).

The singles built strong friendships with each other.

It wasn't only romantic relationships that blossomed in the pods. Real friendships were made too. Lauren Speed said that they spent their time out of the pods talking, baking, and twerking. "It was literally a sorority," Speed told Refinery29 (opens in new tab). And Mark Cuervas told Refinery29 (opens in new tab) that his non-romantic dates "turned into a lot of genuine friendships" too.

Singles who didn't form connections were asked to leave.

There were 40-50 people who started the experiment, but not everyone made it through the 10 days of pod dating. "It became evident as the process went on, from that big group of people, that there were some people that more people were gravitating towards then others," Coelen told E! News (opens in new tab). "There was a certain point where we did a whittling down of people just to focus internally on the people who were really connecting, to allow them more time. We ended up having maybe 20-25 people in the pods at that point."

The couples can get engaged at any time.

Even before the 10 days of pod dating are up because when you know you know. After getting engaged, the cast members get to meet in person the next day.

They had to wait to tell their families that they were engaged.

One of the first things people do when they get engaged is call their families to tell them the good news. But the secrecy surrounding the show, combined with the no-phone policy, meant couples couldn't share their news until they returned home to Atlanta, Georgia.

Even then, it was the couple's decision when to break the news.

"The premise of the show was not a secret, but as adults it was up to them as to when (or whether) they chose to tell their families," Coelen told Bustle (opens in new tab). The couples had to introduce their families for the show, but production didn't force them into a big reveal.

There's a practical reason everyone was based in Atlanta.

All of the cast members had to be from Atlanta, Georgia. Coelen told Variety (opens in new tab) that producers thought this would help relationships work out in the long term. "We wanted to give them a real shot at making their love and their marriage working," Coelen said.

The guys chose the engagement rings on set...

It goes without saying that the cast couldn't just pop into a jewelry store to pick out their engagement rings. Instead, the show arranged for a collection of various rings to be brought to the studio that the men were able to pick from. "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," Coelen told ET (opens in new tab).

...And they couldn't ask their fiancées for input.

One thing the cast members couldn't talk about? Ring shopping. That decision was entirely a surprise...as if seeing their partner for the first time wasn't a big enough surprise!

Three of the female cast members received the same ring.

The jeweler for the Love Is Blind rings has not been revealed, but leave it to the show's devoted fans to figure out that both Lauren, Jessica, and Amber sported the same three-diamond stunner (opens in new tab).

More couples got engaged than you saw on the show...

The show didn’t expect the experiment to work as well as it did. In fact, two couples left the pods newly engaged, but weren't featured on the show. "It wasn't that we didn't want to follow them...we literally just didn't feel like we had the bandwidth to be able to do justice to all of the stories," Coelen told ET (opens in new tab). “It was overwhelming in terms of the way that it worked so well for people."

...But those couples broke up.

We're honestly disappointed the show chose not to follow the engagement of Rory Newbrough and Danielle Drouin because it sounds liked it ended pretty dramatically (opens in new tab). After the couple parted ways, Drouin began dating another Love Is Blind cast member named Matt Thomas.

The couples stayed at the Grand Velas Resort for their vacation.

In episode four the newly engaged couples are whisked away on a pre-honeymoon getaway to match their physical connections to their emotional ones. It all happens at the magical Grand Velas Resort (opens in new tab) in Playa del Carmen, Mexico, which you can totally book for your own *very romantic* vacation.

The couples lived in the same Atlanta apartment complex.

After their pre-honeymoon in Mexico, the couples return to real life to plan their weddings. Instead of moving back into their individual homes, they all moved in with their fiancées in the same building. Refinery29 speculates (opens in new tab) that the building is Spectrum on Spring (opens in new tab) in Atlanta.

Cast members aren't paid.

Unlike other dating shows, there was no cash prize at the end. "The participants are paid little if anything," a source told Women's Health (opens in new tab).

Couples have to pay for part of their wedding.

Production pitches in to cover basic costs (opens in new tab), but if couples want to go beyond the basic package, it's up to them how much they want to invest into their big day.

The venues on the show were pretty expensive.

One of the two wedding venues (opens in new tab) featured on the final episode, The Estate (opens in new tab), costs up to $30,000 to reserve on a Saturday. The other location for the nuptials was one of Atlanta's premiere wedding locales called Flourish (opens in new tab).

Yes, the marriages are legal.

Each couple is required to head to the alter, whether they agree to tie the knot or not. "If they choose to get married, yes, it's a legally binding marriage," Coelen told Bustle (opens in new tab).

The show took the casting process seriously.

It's hard enough to find a group of people willing to get engaged in a matter of days without seeing the other person, but the show also wanted to make sure contestants were there for the right reasons. "There's a lot of good shows out there where people can find love, but it's not really that serious. We wanted people who are genuine about it," Coelen told Variety (opens in new tab).

The couples reunited for a reunion.

Whether they left the altar as husband and wife or not, Netflix brought all the couples that got engaged back together to discuss their experience. It. Was. Juicy.

The Lacheys returned for the reunion as well.

Nick and Vanessa Lachey hosted the Love Is Blind reunion. The couple sat right in the middle of all the drama.

Netflix hasn't greenlit a second season...yet.

Even though the show's been a hit, there's no guarantee that we'll see a new batch of singles enter the pods anytime soon since Netflix has yet to announce a second season. What are they waiting for?!?!

The creator does want to make more seasons.

Coelen is all for a second season and told OprahMag.com (opens in new tab) that the experiment could be replicated again and again—so watch out, it could come to a city near you.

People are already trying to get casted.

The show's casting agent, Donna Driscoll, told OprahMag.com (opens in new tab) that people who are interested in being casted should check out the Kinetic Casting Facebook page (opens in new tab) for updates.

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