'Married at First Sight' pairs off strangers hoping to find 'true love'
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}"Married at First Sight" is now in its fourth season, and this year more than 30,000 candidates from across the country applied to be paired off and married without ever meeting -- or seeing -- their future spouse.
Six people were selected to participate in the show's social experiment.
Contestant Lillian Vilchez, a 24-year-old realtor from Florida, told FOX411 she wanted to find true love on the show.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}“I was so scared because you are putting your heart on the line,” she said. “My ultimate goal is to find love and be happy. You are doing it in front of the public eye, and you don’t know what is going to happen. Is this going to work out? Is it not going to work out? You get so many mixed emotions. I was scared, nervous and happy and excited all at the same time. It was just crazy.”
Another contestant, Nick Pendergrast, a 32-year-old vacation rental manager, said he was nervous to go on the show but had full confidence in the relationship experts that matched the couples.
“I was definitely nervous, but, again, I’m an analytical person by nature,” he explained. “The experts gave me confidence that they would match me with the right person. I probably answered I don’t even know how many questions [about] myself over and over and then so many interviews in person with them; so they did their due diligence on me. So I was just assuming they put all this thought and effort in matching me with someone else. I was nervous but they kind of gave me a little more confidence in making the decision.”
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Vilchez said she was sick of trying to meet someone in a traditional way.
“I decided to get married at first sight because the dating scene here in Miami is terrible. It is very hard to meet a quality person and to have the opportunity to have a panel of experts match you with someone that believe is an actual match to you, why not do this? I mean it’s amazing.”
The experience made Pendergrast be introspective.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}“My one big takeaway from this whole process would to be a little bit more selfless and kind of think about other people,” he said. “Think about how other people are going to interpret what you are saying and then how they are going to react to it. Also marriage is not hard, but it’s definitely not easy and sometimes it takes a little bit to stop think about it and talk about it and really discuss things. Communication is my downfall.”
Vilchez was coy about whether or not she actually found love on the show.
“I don’t know, I guess you have to wait and see!”
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}“Married at First Sight” returns July 26th on FYI.