After months of waiting, the launch date of the new series of Married At First Sight UK has finally been announced - and it’s just days away. On 18 September, a whole new host of singletons will be marrying a stranger at first sight in an attempt to find their happily ever after.
But while viewers may be familiar with former contestants such as Zoe Clifton and Jenna Robinson, one couple experienced a very different Married At First Sight experience away from the cameras. After Ally Acklan and Paul Todd signed up for the 2020 series of the show, all appeared to be going well until the Covid-19 lockdown brought their wedding to a standstill.
“We’d done six weeks worth of filming and I’d even gone through the hassle of confusing a suit salesman by telling him that I couldn’t tell him what colour the bridesmaids were wearing because I didn’t even know who I was marrying,” Paul, 35, tells OK!.
“Two days before our wedding day, production called up and said it wasn’t going ahead. I thought I was never going to meet Ally so I begged the experts to put me in touch with her or else I was going to message every single Ally on Instagram until I found her.”
Soon after, Paul and Ally met each other via a video call that ended up lasting 90 minutes and the rest is history. “The funny thing is, it was never awkward. The experts had been so reassuring that I knew Ally was the right person for me and I was the right person for her. We’d already bought into the idea of each other before we’d even met. It was really natural,” Paul explains.
After weeks of speaking to each other, the pair decided to lockdown together and Ally visited Paul three and a half hours away in Weston-Super-Mare. “I only packed two weeks worth of clothes because I didn’t know how long I’d be there for,” says Ally, 38. “Three years later and I’m yet to move out.
“I felt comfortable straightaway. I think Tobytook a few weeks to feel more at ease with having someone in his house, but I felt like it was right immediately,” she says. “Don’t ask me why, but I had a strong intuition that Married At First Sight would help me find a match.”
By October 2020, the pair found out that they were expecting a baby together in what was a “happy blessing” and, when Ally was seven months pregnant, Paul got down on one knee during a visit to a local beach.
“I was so consumed with thinking about things relating to pregnancy that I was surprised when he popped the question,” says Ally. “When he got down on one knee I think I asked if he was joking and I started crying happy tears.”
Three years on, the pair are the doting parents to their daughter Penelope and are set to tie the knot in June next year in a ceremony that will likely be different to the one that had planned for the show.
“This time, we’re much more in control of our wedding. Before we were given a pamphlet with colour schemes and decor choices but now we have control of everything. It’s a hindrance and a blessing,” says Paul. “It would be nice to just rock up somewhere, get married and have the rest of the day planned out for us but it’s good to not have the pressure of the cameras.”
Ally agrees: “It would’ve been nice to have our love story captured on camera, but we get to have the privacy that we wouldn’t otherwise get,” she says. “The Married At First Sight experts are coming to our wedding - it’s now how we thought it would happen, but I think it’s how it’s supposed to be.”
Keep up to date with Ally and Paul’s journey on Instagram @unseen_couple
