February 27, 2020 | 11:24am
Warning: This article contains spoilers.
Netflix’s “Love Is Blind” is the latest reality dating show to sweep the nation.
But even superfans of the show — which follows couples who date and get engaged without ever seeing one another, then decide whether or not to get married — have a few lingering questions about the logistics.
Over the course of the series, six couples — Cameron Hamilton and Lauren Speed, Damian Powers and Giannina Gibelli, Kenny Barnes and Kelly Chase, Mark Cuevas and Jessica Batten, Matt Barnett and Amber Pike as well as Carlton Morton and Diamond Jack — speed-dated for hours in the so-called “pods,” finally met face-to-face and began planning their weddings.
However, viewers were left confused about where the show’s engagement rings came from, and who paid for them. Did the men come to the show having already paid for potentially useless diamonds? Were they specially commissioned from a particular jeweler, in the vein of Neil Lane and “The Bachelor?”
While much of the experimental show is kept under wraps by its producers, “Love Is Blind” creator Chris Coelen recently revealed to ET that the men on the show are provided with a selection of sparklers before they get down on one knee.
“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]. We wouldn’t have allowed them to at that point,” he told the outlet, adding that those who chose to propose had to pick a ring without their future fiancée’s input.
“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.”
Eagle-eyed fans have noticed, however, that it appears Speed, Batten and Pike are all wearing the same three-stone sparkler. Reps from Netflix did not immediately respond to Page Six Style’s request for comment about the rings, including the question of whether they must be returned should the couples not make it to the altar.
Coelen said that production covered some of the couples’ wedding costs, but that “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.”
This season included an episode in which the men picked out their suits and women chose their wedding gowns, with Pike mentioning to fiancé Barnett that she went over budget on her dress by $400.
As for the provider of the show’s wedding rings? That, as with much of “Love Is Blind,” remains a mystery.
On Wednesday, Netflix announced that all of the “Love Is Blind” couples will reunite for a special episode to update viewers on their relationships; it’s set to air on YouTube on March 5.
