PURSUITS
BACKSTAGE
AT THE
BACHELOR
BY N A N CY FR EN CH
I
straightened out my silver dress at the Four Seasons resort, cognizant of cameras perched on ladders and strategically placed uplighting. Six million people were about to witness this wedding on live television. It was 2014, and I was in a Santa Barbara audience chock full of reality TV stars. Some were teetering on gravity-defying heels; at least one was sporting a miniature dog in a purse. As a ghostwriter, I’ve been on a Romney presidential campaign bus, a Trump presidential campaign plane, the set of “Dancing With the Stars,” at 30 Rock, Fox studios, an Olympic gymnastics training center, and — now — at a rare “Bachelor” wedding. I was preparing to help former bachelor Sean Lowe write a memoir, which became “For the Right Reasons: America’s Favorite Bachelor on Faith, Love, Marriage, and Why Nice Guys Finish First.” I spied many of the show’s favorites in the audience — host Chris Harrison, Trista and Ryan Sutter, Molly and Jason Mesnick — as we watched Sean walk his mom down the aisle. This was my first wedding segmented by commercial breaks. When the bride-to-be (and Season 17 winner) Catherine Giudici appeared, Sean’s eyes filled with tears. The audience rose, then something unexpected happened. The musical duo 2Cellos didn’t begin playing the traditional “Wedding March” or Pachelbel’s Canon in D. Evidently, amid the chaos of wedding planning, Sean and Catherine forgot to select a song. So 2Cellos called an audible — they played Michael Jackson’s “Human Nature.” It was an interesting choice. The song is about being unable to control carnal desire, the opposite of Sean and Catherine’s relationship philosophy. If you watched Sean’s season of “The Bachelor,” then you’ve heard — a few thousand times — the nickname “The Virgin Bachelor.” At age 24, Sean had committed to save sex for marriage. He used the “overnight dates” to get to know the women instead of de facto honeymoon auditions. After his proposal, people couldn’t understand — or believe — the couple’s decision to wait 16 months between the proposal and the wedding. When they gamely took a lie detector test on a late-night show (and passed with flying colors), 74 DESERET MAGAZINE
Jimmy Kimmel remarked, “I’m proud and disappointed at the same time.” But tonight was the night. In her personal vows, Catherine said with emotion, “Sometimes I think I’m going to explode from how much I love you. ... And tonight, we get to become one.” The producers were ecstatic about the wedding, since successful “Bachelor” unions don’t frequently occur. In fact, Sean is the only “Bachelor” to have married the woman to whom he proposed on the show. This month, Matt James — a real estate broker — is trying to find true love in the show’s 25th season. It’s been six years since Sean and Catherine’s wedding ceremony. They’re still together, and they’re the proud parents of three children. It’s the unusual success story for a show built on the promise of fairy tale endings and why so many of us keep coming back season after season. But the payoff is rare, and the show itself is often an impediment to love lasting beyond 10 episodes. The show’s rose ceremonies, it turns out, may actually hinder the likelihood of ring ceremonies. Having written about “The Bachelor” at length (and watched more seasons than I care to admit), I’ve seen a pattern of obstacles that the participants must overcome to find true love. The challenge starts with the show’s timeline and competition, but it also extends to a franchise-wide culture of prioritizing hothouse drama, sensuous jacuzzi scenes and, during “The Bachelorette’s” last season, a strip dodgeball game. Mirroring broader cultural trends, intimate matters like faith, values and family are too often left on the cutting room floor.
• I • the scene is the same every season, and it’s always unbearably awkward: roughly 25 women exit a series of limos, full of Botox, lip injections and high hopes. The producers encourage the women to make a good impression, which results in many ill-advised gimmicks. Who wants to be known as the woman who needed an “emotional support cow” as happened in Season 24, or as
the cadaver tissue saleswoman who brought in a slimy, fake heart in Season 19? These strategies are necessary — there are more than two dozen female contestants each season. And a person’s natural charm simply can’t unfold organically over the course of eight weeks when everyone is jockeying for attention. Perhaps you could find true love in that environment, but could you do it while being filmed — or while your potential spouse dates 24 other people? That’s a lot to pack into a few months. Jason and Molly Mesnick admitted they fell in love after the show, not on it. Yet, the girls (and the guys) try. They vie desperately for attention, attempting to share something special on that first, tipsy evening. Plenty of drinks meet the arrivals, and the show doesn’t reveal that these opening evenings actually stretch for hours. Participants, new to the whole phenomenon, usually don’t know to pace themselves as the show films all the arrivals, gawky greetings and confessionals. Presumably the resulting train wreck makes for good TV. The rose ceremony itself seems to last for about five minutes, but it takes a long time to actually film. When Sean’s first rose ceremony was finally over at 6 a.m., the host Chris Harrison made everyone breakfast burritos. The highly packed environment reduces everyone to a walking elevator pitch, as they try to relay their relevant life information as quickly as possible. Conversations are squished into small moments, like Cinderella’s stepsisters trying on a glass slipper. These brief chats are essential, since oneon-one dates are so few and far between. Ever notice no one really eats on those dimly lit romantic dates? That’s because the producers send food to the participants’ hotel rooms first, so they don’t slurp their meals on camera while wearing the super-sensitive microphones. This is not an easy environment in which to make a permanent, life-changing decision. And it even becomes harder when the kind of conversations that matter most when thinking about marriage — including personal values — are typically ushered away from cameras, if they occur at all.
