‘Love Is Blind’ Rules: How Dates Are Set Up in the Pods, Wedding Budgets and More

Credit: Aarón Ortega/Netflix

‘Love Is Blind' Rules: How Dates Are Set Up in the Pods, Wedding Budgets and More

Love Is Blind is a unique reality show for several reasons — but the Netflix series has rules just like other dating experiments. Season 1 featured six couples who got engaged after communicating via soundproof pods and never seeing each other’s faces. “We didn’t want any sound to bleed through any other pods. We basically had a small speaker in the front wall, and you would hear the other person who was in the other pod. [There are] no producers in there, there’s nobody else,” creator Chris Coelen told Variety in 2020. “It’s just you and the other person. That's it." While four duos — Giannina Gibelli and Damian Powers; Kelly Chase and Kenny Barnes; Jessica Batten and Mark Cuevas; Carlton Morton and Diamond Jack — split (at various points of the show) during season 1, two couples are still going strong: Lauren Speed and Cameron Hamilton and Amber Pike and Matt Barnett. “We do a lot of diligence on the cast and we invite people to participate who we’ve done lots of vetting on, who exhibit an authentic desire and interest to actually finding someone to fall in love with and if they find that person, to get married to,” Coelen explained in a 2022 interview. “We want somebody who’s genuinely interested in a committed relationship. That’s really the first thing that we’re looking for. And then beyond that, we have a big enough pool that we try to invite people of all shapes, sizes, backgrounds and walks of life.” [sendtonews type="float" key="QiJW14KJCz-2834527-14453"] Season 2 of Love Is Blind also had two successful marriages, with Jarrette Jones and Iyanna McNeely exchanging vows and Nick Thompson and Danielle Ruhl tying the knot. (The two pairs ultimately split one year later.) The other twosomes included Deepti Vempati and Abhishek “Shake” Chatterjee, Salvador “Sal” Perez and Mallory Zapata, Shayne Jansen and Natalie Lee and Kyle Abrams and Shaina Hurley. “As producers, we don’t have any control over what happens. We don’t try to exert or sway over any of the participants,” Coelen continued. “We won’t ever tell them what to say, what to do, how to think, how to feel. This is entirely documenting their real journey. So we build the machinery, and then they go into it and they have their own experience and as a producer, that’s frightening, because you don’t have any control, but it’s also exhilarating, because it’s incredible, it’s authentic. We had eight engagements in the season, we chose to follow — just like in season 1 — six of them, because you only have so much bandwidth.” Seasons 1 and 2 of Love Is Blind are streaming on Netflix. Scroll through for a list of rules regarding the production of the show:

Credit: Aarón Ortega/Netflix

‘Love Is Blind' Rules: How Dates Are Set Up in the Pods, Wedding Budgets and More

Love Is Blind is a unique reality show for several reasons — but the Netflix series has rules just like other dating experiments. Season 1 featured six couples who got engaged after communicating via soundproof pods and never seeing each other’s faces. “We didn’t want any sound to bleed through any other pods. We basically had a small speaker in the front wall, and you would hear the other person who was in the other pod. [There are] no producers in there, there’s nobody else,” creator Chris Coelen told Variety in 2020. “It’s just you and the other person. That's it." While four duos — Giannina Gibelli and Damian Powers; Kelly Chase and Kenny Barnes; Jessica Batten and Mark Cuevas; Carlton Morton and Diamond Jack — split (at various points of the show) during season 1, two couples are still going strong: Lauren Speed and Cameron Hamilton and Amber Pike and Matt Barnett. “We do a lot of diligence on the cast and we invite people to participate who we’ve done lots of vetting on, who exhibit an authentic desire and interest to actually finding someone to fall in love with and if they find that person, to get married to,” Coelen explained in a 2022 interview. “We want somebody who’s genuinely interested in a committed relationship. That’s really the first thing that we’re looking for. And then beyond that, we have a big enough pool that we try to invite people of all shapes, sizes, backgrounds and walks of life.” [sendtonews type="float" key="QiJW14KJCz-2834527-14453"] Season 2 of Love Is Blind also had two successful marriages, with Jarrette Jones and Iyanna McNeely exchanging vows and Nick Thompson and Danielle Ruhl tying the knot. (The two pairs ultimately split one year later.) The other twosomes included Deepti Vempati and Abhishek “Shake” Chatterjee, Salvador “Sal” Perez and Mallory Zapata, Shayne Jansen and Natalie Lee and Kyle Abrams and Shaina Hurley. “As producers, we don’t have any control over what happens. We don’t try to exert or sway over any of the participants,” Coelen continued. “We won’t ever tell them what to say, what to do, how to think, how to feel. This is entirely documenting their real journey. So we build the machinery, and then they go into it and they have their own experience and as a producer, that’s frightening, because you don’t have any control, but it’s also exhilarating, because it’s incredible, it’s authentic. We had eight engagements in the season, we chose to follow — just like in season 1 — six of them, because you only have so much bandwidth.” Seasons 1 and 2 of Love Is Blind are streaming on Netflix. Scroll through for a list of rules regarding the production of the show:

Credit: Mitchell Haaseth/Netflix

Producers Like to Decide Who Speaks 1st on the Wedding Day

Coelen told Variety in April 2023 that producers typically decide the order in that contestants will say “I do” or “I don’t."

“We put our finger into the wind and see which way it’s blowing. This documentation of their experience is a moment in their life. The choice that they make at the altar is for the rest of their life, either way. We don’t want to influence their decision at all,” he told the outlet. “I go see them on the day of their wedding and I don’t even ask them what they’re going to say. I do not want to know.”

The TV producer added: “We want it to be real. I always tell them, ‘From a cynical producer’s point of view, I literally do not care [what their answer is]. If we have delivered the audience a very compelling journey, then let’s lean into the authenticity of that. But for you, you live with that forever.’ The only thing that matters to me is that each person makes the right decision for themselves.”

Credit: Courtesy of Netflix

Does Geography Matter to Casting?

While Love Is Blind season 4 was set in Seattle, several of its participants lived a couple of hours away. (Kwame Appiah and Chelsea Griffin, for their part, notably clashed over whether or not the groom would leave Portland to join his soon-to-be wife in Seattle once they got married.)

“We always try to make the pool of potential participants as broad as we possibly can make it. So you’re in a specific region like Seattle and we felt, in casting, Portland is only around a two-hour drive,” Coelen told Variety in 2023. “We felt that it was helpful to open up that aperture of casting to be able to include people from as far away as Portland. It felt reasonable to us that if you fell in love and you were within a two-hour radius driving, you can make that work if you want it to. … I think the reason to do that was just to open up the pool of potential participants as wide as we possibly could.”

Credit: Netflix

How Pod Dates Are Set Up

Coelen told Bustle that the initial dates are similar to “speed-dating,” noting that they spent seven to 10 minutes together. However, as the connections deepen, “They get to pick the people they want to spend more time with. They make the decisions themselves. … Over time they'll spend many hours together multiple times per day.”

During an interview with Refinery29, Cameron added, “The dates were organized for us [at the beginning] and we would rate at the end of the day who we liked the most and the least. [The producers] would then use those rankings to figure out dates for the subsequent days. As the days went on, the length of the dates went longer but the number of people you saw got shorter.”

Toward the end of the 10 days, there isn't a strict time limit regarding the pods. 

Credit: Patrick Wymore/Netflix

The Length of the Experiment

Coelen revealed in a Netflix Tudum article that the pod portion of the experiment is 10 days.

“They talk about the deepest things in every possible way about every conceivable subject. They’re trying to identify every single thing that might be important to talk about before they choose to marry someone,” he says. “After the fact, people have said they know — not just the person they’re engaged to, but multiple people — better than they’ve ever known anyone else. Better than they know their parents. Their siblings. It’s insane. They really do fall in love.”

While there are 40-50 people in the original cast, the majority of the experiment ends up being 20-25 people after initial connections are made.

Filming for season 1 was a total of 38 days, meaning the couples are together for 28 days outside of the pods.

Credit: Patrick Wymore/Netflix

The Living Arrangements

“The first four days we filmed on average I'd say 18 to 20 hours. We slept in trailers and they were correctional facility beds. The design was to just strip us down from our comfort level,” Kenny told Refinery29.

However, for season 2, they upgraded the contestants to hotel rooms, with producers leading them to and from the pods.

While Lauren compared the living arrangements from season 1 to a sorority, Jessica noted she did a lot journaling, explaining, “I wanted to remember things because every day is like a month in there and so much can change.”

The stars also confirmed that they can request food and drink items to have during the experiment, but they cannot have their phones or internet access.

Credit: Netflix

The Engagement Rules

The couples can get engaged at any point during the 10 days — and the show provides the ring. “If they want to propose and want to have a ring to give, we provide—up to a certain level—a ring for them to do that with,” Coelen told Variety. “If they choose to do that, we actually give choices. There are, like, 10 or 12 different styles and colors. It’s up to them, they don’t have to. There’s no pressure to do that.”

Credit: Netflix

The Producers’ Involvement

The female contestants and the male contestants each have teams of producers, but according to Coelen, producers don’t interrupt the couples in the pods.

“They’d help facilitate needs for people, so it would feel like dating. For example, if someone said, ‘I love Italian food and I’d love to have an Italian dinner with my date.’ We would get some lasagna and arrange that,” he said. “Obviously they can’t eat it together but they could say, “Oh this lasagna’s really cheesy” or whatever. If they want it to draw pictures together, whatever they wanted to do, we really wanted them to feel like it’s their own thing.”

Sal also noted to E! News that they are given “talking points” if they need them.

"There were kind of topics for the day," Kyle added while talking to the outlet. ”It was good if there was a lull in conversation, you just refer to the little notebook and you can drum up conversation."

Credit: Adrian S. Burrows Sr./Netflix

Who Pays for the Weddings?

Netflix only covers the “basics” for the weddings, with a rep for the streaming service noting, “But because these are their real weddings, it’s up to them as to how to spend their money.”

The creator also told Women’s Health: “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.”

Credit: Patrick Wymore/Netflix

The Gold Cups

Throughout the season, the stars are strictly shown drinking from gold wine glasses and cups. According to the creator, it’s strictly a style preference.

“It’s something I like. When you turn on the show, you know it’s our show,” he said. “It’s a very authentic, really true following of these people’s journeys, but I like the fact that we have this sort of connective tissue with that in a really light way, it’s fun.”

Credit: Aarón Ortega/Netflix

The Final Decision

The show is designed to have the couples make their final decision at the altar. Coelen told E! News that the cast members “certainly could choose to do whatever they wanted to do” when it comes to skipping the wedding day. Jessica, however, claimed to EW that she wasn’t allowed to quit during season 1.

“I definitely had a conversation about leaving and I wasn’t able to do that,” she said. “My dog got sick too, and almost died during the show. I had so much other stuff going on."