Is Love Really Blind?

June 28, 2007— -- There are the classic wedding snapshots: the nervous bride, the back-slapping groomsmen, the fussy wedding planner. There are the million last minute details: the flowers, the cake, the seating plan.

It's a typical wedding, except for the fact that the bride and groom have never laid eyes on each other.

Six weeks before this unique wedding, Laura O'Connor was another single woman in Chicago, listening to a morning radio show that happened to be running what they called a "social experiment." WTMX's Eric and Kathy Show set out to find potential brides and grooms to participate in the experiment they called "Two Strangers and a Wedding: Is Love Blind?"

They wanted to see if two people could fall in love, sight unseen, and actually get married after six weeks. The winning couple would get to know each other only over radio waves and monitored telephone conversations.

Since 1998, this contest has been held 21 times around the globe. The unusual concept is packaged for radio stations by a company called Absolute & Dowse.

So far, every single couple got married and went off on a honeymoon paid for by sponsors (all of the competitions have included some heavy duty incentives courtesy of sponsors), but 16 of the 20 couples have since split up.

A friend encouraged O'Connor, a 31-year-old trade show account manager, to dash off an application.

"It just really was on a whim, and I just thought it was a neat idea," said O'Connor. But she took the challenge seriously and said she was "in this to find the guy of my dreams."

Applicants subjected themselves to personality tests, background checks and even a lie detector test, and the radio station brought in a panel of experts to help narrow down the candidates.

Intimate Details

Sex therapist Dr. Laura Berman said that the bride hopefuls shared a "what the heck?" attitude. "The one thing they had in common is that they felt like they had tried everything else," she said.

O'Connor, designated "Monday's Bride," was one of five finalists to be featured on the radio on a particular day of the week. Her charming girl-next-door personality helped her win the radio listeners' hearts, and votes.

O'Connor didn't think she would win.

"I literally woke up thinking, there's no way!," she said. "Those other brides blew me out of the water."

But, to her delight, the DJs announced live on the air that O'Connor would be the bride. Over the next week, listeners got to know O'Connor, her hobbies, her daily routine… and some very intimate details.

"At one point they had asked me, ideally, how much I would enjoy to have sex in a week?" O'Connor recalled. "And I said four to five times a week … And I will never live that down for the rest of my life."

In Search of a Groom

The experts met again to narrow the pool of grooms. But this time, O'Connor would make the final selection. She listened to five potential grooms on the radio, and at night she was allowed a phone call with that day's groom, monitored and recorded by WTMX. They were allowed to talk about almost anything, as long as they avoided questions that would reveal their identities or appearance.

On the final day, O'Connor was expected to choose her potential groom, but when she got on the air, she asked for more time to think. Eric and Kathy granted her the weekend if she would narrow down to two. Her picks? "Wednesday's Groom" and "Thursday's Groom."

Two days later, it was decision time. The listeners voted for Thursday's groom. The experts preferred Wednesday's groom. But O'Connor had her heart set on Thursday. The winner was T.R. Bell, a 32-year-old women's soccer coach.

The potential lovebirds spent the two weeks before the wedding trying to fall in love. The process of getting to know each other involved phone calls that were potentially being heard by hundreds of thousands of radio listeners.

"Can you describe how you kiss?" asked Bell over the phone.

"I'm literally blushing right now," responded a giddy O'Connor, who admitted that she was falling for Bell, even without seeing him. "From the first moment I heard his voice on the radio, got the butterflies in my stomach."

Bell also admitted he felt there was chemistry in their phone conversations.

"Intrigued was probably my first reaction," he said. "And then as the conversations have gone on, I've become attracted to her, definitely."

'The Best Part'

Relationship expert Judith Wright said this experiment, "Two Strangers and a Wedding: Is Love Blind?" raised fundamental questions about how we should choose our mates.

"Will someone love me when I'm old and wrinkled? What if I gain a little weight, would I still be attractive?" she said. "I think all of us want to know that we're loved for who we are, not just what we look like."

O'Connor agreed with the idea that looks shouldn't be crucial to her decision.

"If you strip away the whole look part of it, and you really get to the nitty gritty, I think that you get to the best part of what somebody is," she said. "If he's one twentieth of what I have in my head, I'm golden."

O'Connor was confident in her choice, but the experts weren't so sure. Berman said the phone conversations hadn't gone far enough and encouraged the pair to talk about sex to get a sense of their sexual compatibility.

"When all is said and done," she said, "you've got to have that physical chemistry too."

A True 'Blind Date'

As the wedding approached, the radio station sent O'Connor to sample wedding cakes, pick out flowers and decide on the music. Bell, meanwhile, was sent with his groomsmen to pick out tuxes. And his heart stopped when he was presented with a choice of wedding rings.

"When they first pulled the rings out and opened the boxes, I nearly fell off my chair," he said. "Because it's another step of, 'Oh my God, this is heading towards something.'"

O'Connor and Bell were desperate to go on a date, so the radio station set up a cozy table in a private room in a Chicago restaurant, but the couple had a partition completely separating them and chaperones a few feet away, taking notes.

"This is really weird," said Bell.

Although they couldn't see each other and weren't even allowed to touch through the curtain, there was flirting and good-natured bickering.

Along with a fully-paid and planned wedding, O'Connor and Bell were offered a year in a luxury furnished condo, a honeymoon in Hawaii, and a reception performance by Grammy winner John Legend. This might have been tempting for a couple that was already kind of falling for one another, but would they actually seal the deal?

'I'm So Glad to Meet You'

On the big day, more than a 100 friends and family gathered for the ceremony, which would also be broadcast live. There was so much interest from Chicago-area listeners that the WTMX Web site crashed.

The bride and groom were positioned behind partitions and were introduced first to their guests, and then to each other.

"Oh my gosh, hi!" O'Connor whispered, as the partitions were moved and she hugged her groom, "I'm so glad to meet you finally!!"

Bell said his first reaction after lifting the veil was how beautiful O'Connor was. But were they ready to say their vows?

"I think that marriage is a lifelong commitment and I don't think in the short time we've had we have fallen in love," O'Connor announced to friends, family and radio listeners.

"Right now we're in, like,' We don't think it's right for us to get married if we're not in love," said Bell.

Cake and Dates

Even though they didn't tie the knot, both O'Connor and Bell thought the experiment was a success.

"I found someone who I'm very comfortable with," said Bell, "and who I'm looking forward to dating."

Even their family members were a bit smitten. O'Connor's mom thought the idea was hopelessly romantic. And Bell's dad believed that if they had been given more time, they could've fallen in love.

And despite their decision not to go through with the wedding, the couple still got to eat their wedding cake and enjoy their party with friends and family.

After a celebration complete with a first dance and wedding portraits, the couple attempted "normal" dating. But maybe it was all just too fast. Two weeks after their would-be wedding day, Bell told O'Connor he just wanted to be friends.

They have no regrets, both say, because it's always worth taking chances in the name of love.