Courtesy of BBC

Recently I caught a rerun of the BBC America show “Don’t Tell the Bride.” The reality series follows engaged couples as they plan their weddings. Oh, but there’s a catch. The bride isn’t allowed to have any say in the wedding plans whatsoever; instead, those responsibilities are saddled onto the groom who has $20,000 and four weeks to get it all done by himself. In print it sounds like TV crack, but in reality it sounds like a complete nightmare. Besides having BBC America foot the wedding bill, I can’t think of any other reason to sign up for such a show.

The episode I saw featured the couple Sam and Katy. Sam had a sensible approach to wedding planning. He consulted his friends, the bride’s friends, and the salesclerks and then made decisions by process of elimination. When it came to choosing the wedding dress, he chose the dress the salesclerk told him was the most popular amongst brides. The whole process definitely wore Sam out, and I could tell it was a lot harder than he probably thought it was going to be, but he put in a good effort and did the best he could. And, to be honest, none of his choices were downright awful. Some of his choices, like the wedding dress, were fantastic.

But that’s when Katy started to crack. As soon as she saw the wedding invitations, she started getting panicky about the wedding not being what she imagined. I guess she forgot what she signed up for? Anyway, the day before the wedding when she tried on the wedding dress Sam picked out for her, she goes nuts. The dress, which was a perfectly nice dress, was too “common” for her. In a frantic fit of anger, she asked the salesclerk how many people have bought her dress. The salesclerk said the dress was a bestseller. Katy turns toward the mirror and starts morphing into the Hulk. I seriously never seen anyone lose their cool over a perfectly cute dress. The salesclerk offered her another dress to wear on loan and so the wedding went on, they got married and somehow everything worked out (like most reality shows).

Would you trust your fiance to plan your wedding without your input?