When Married at First Sight groom Luke forgets the wedding rings at his accommodation on his big day, bride Mel is left waiting at the altar, and what she wanted to be her “fairy-tale” moment left her wedding – in her own words – “ruined”.
“I did feel let down [by the experts],” Mel, 28, tells TV WEEK. “Especially when I walked down the aisle and I thought, ‘Oh my god — where is he?’ I just remember looking at my friends and family and thinking, ‘You probably feel so sorry for me with this person that I’m about to marry.’”
“I remember when we were leaving the wedding, I just waved bye to them all and felt sad. Is this really a person that I’m meant to be with? It started off on the wrong foot from the get-go.”
Sydney-based public servant Mel has been matched with Victorian farmer Luke, 30 – a country boy with a close-knit family, a big heart and a tragic past, having lost his father years ago. On paper, the pairing seems promising. In reality, it unravels fast.
Luke’s late arrival, forgotten rings and gum-chewing at the altar leave Mel unimpressed, and his attempts to apologise fall flat.
“It was a horrible way to meet Mel for the first time,” Luke admits. “I felt bad that she was waiting for me at the altar. She was clearly quite upset by that. I was struggling to connect with Mel – that was the hardest part.
For Mel, the issues ran deeper than disorganisation.
“I didn’t feel any of that romantic attraction,” she says. “There was no chemistry at the start.”
With production reminding Luke about the rings while he was already en route – and still allowing Mel to walk down the aisle knowing her groom was nowhere near arriving – questions are already swirling. Were they set up from the start? And is there any way back from a wedding day gone so wrong?
Are MAFS’ Luke and Mel still together?
Things were not looking good for this couple for much of the experiment.
Unable to get over her wedding day disappointment – both being left waiting for her groom and Luke not looking like Bradley Cooper when he did arrive! – Mel took every opportunity to sabotage her relationship.
Cold, callous and downright nasty, she played the victim and nearly broke her poor husband’s spirit.
However, some eye-opening feedback from the experts at the first Commitment Ceremony saw a complete shift in Mel’s attitude.
Since then, the couple have smiled, laughed and become friends – they even started living together again!
“I changed my attitude, I changed my outlook, and that’s why it’s changed our relationship,” Mel told Marie Claire. “We’re doing so good.”
Added Luke, “We drew a line in the sand and said we’re not going to look back at what’s happened in the past.”
Still, unfortunately, for her part, Mel was never able to see anything romantic, and the couple eventually called it quits.
After copping a ton of backlash for her treatment of her partner, on March 17, Mel took to Instagram to apologise for her behaviour on the show.
“Over the past few weeks I’ve watched parts of myself on TV that have been difficult to see. There were moments where I didn’t communicate well and came across insensitive. For that, I’m truly sorry to anyone who felt hurt or offended,” she wrote.
“This experience has been a huge learning curve for me. I’m not perfect. All I can do is acknowledge it and keep growing.”
She went on to apologise for the comments she made about stalking, insisting she does “not condone that behaviour” and explain that she was referring to “something from when I was 17 and joking with friends”.
“It was careless of me to say it the way I did. I regret it,” she added.
For his part, Luke told the Daily Mail he felt “alone and isolated” from the very beginning, saying it felt like Mel “checked out from the moment she saw” him and never truly let him in – even on a friendship level.
In particular, the first couple of weeks were painful.
“I saw how I was being treated. It just re-sparked all these memories in my mind,” he said.
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