In the event it was not love in the beginning look, it absolutely was very damn close. This is one way James Reeves taped his first thoughts of Olivia Rickman on
8 January 2011, in sunday mag
: “Strikingly very. We showed up early, but she was already there. She looked great, and the bistro illumination made the world look like a
Vettriano
paint.” It wasn’t just just what she appeared to be, though. They talked-about: “Cubism,
Aperol
, cruising,
synaesthesia
, how big is Yorkshire…,” said James during the time. And then he’d hardly begun. “…Venice, Harry Potter,
Peggy Guggenheim
, race education, Glasgow, siblings, sleeper trains, bleak surroundings, the attentiveness of this team, basking sharks.” Olivia’s account was significantly less florid, but just as shining. Markings off 10? “we can’t consider something that would drop him a point.”

That blind date occurred in December 2010. 24 months later on, before xmas, Weekend got an email from James: “Olivia and that I get married.” The guy thanked us profusely, in addition to following day cycled in with a box of delicious chocolate.

It was the basic Blind Date wedding. After three years and 11 several months, and 200-50 plus dating, we’d finally pulled it off
.

A week later we got a phone call from another couple of Blind Daters:
Stefanie Stewart-Hodges and Graham Lyons
. They were additionally marriage. This was becoming dangerously like a practice. But, again, the symptoms have there been right away. “efficiently breathtaking,” said Graham in December 2009. Would Stefanie like to see him again? “I would love to, yeah.”

Both partners say they have been gradualists. No reason to hurry: they will get married for the fullness of the time. But Weekend just isn’t so controlled. Therefore we rush all of them into a studio to mock-up the major day. Olivia is evolving into her wedding gown by the point we appear, and James is actually suited and booted. When she emerges fully outfitted, he investigates her adoringly. He does not very appear to think their chance.

It is four many years since Weekend began the Blind Date line. Anna Chesters, just who sets up the activities, says she actively seeks three circumstances: get older, location and typical passions. If a couple perform the same job, she guides all of them away – an excessive amount of a busman’s getaway. In early times, men and women regularly send in photographs. Today she asks all of them never to, although really sometimes Blind Daters have actually complained that their own associates try not to match all of them when you look at the looks department. Ladies people exceed men by 20 to one. “they are normally a lot more willing to have a great time,” Anna says, “and much more positive about this. The men are usually anxious.”

The times cannot constantly go well. First impressions have ranged from
“as well damned large”
to
“25 moments late and don’t truly apologise”
and, many uncompromisingly,
“That Is Not Anne Hathaway”
. Any shameful moments?
“He got my photo and uploaded it on Instagram.”
“I’d lack what to say, therefore we stepped towards pipe alone.”
“the guy requested easily possessed a corset within 10 minutes… I did not know what to express when he proposed we ‘call a spade a spade and then leave it at tonight’.”

There’s something painfully individual about Blind Date: all sorts of things, maybe it’s myself – or perhaps you. Whenever daters hate both, we wince. If they are great about each other but offer low marks, we think cheated. While they are vile about one another but give high scars, we think puzzled. Once they complain regarding their lovers becoming too short or too large, or state they want they’d already been trapped in visitors, or a lady moans the man failed to pay for the woman taxi cab home, readers email to rail against heightism, bitchiness and sexism. Often daters get another method: they are also polite, they accept offer each other exactly the same results and consult on commentary. And, on rare occasions, they adore one another.

Any blind big date is terrifying, but throw in a look in a national magazine, a warts’n’all photoshoot, several humiliating questions (table manners, embarrassing minutes, do you kiss?) and a scorecard, and you ponder exactly why anybody would do it. What exactly is involved for them besides a free dinner? And what is the chance for finding true-love on a date developed by a stranger? Actually, we can respond to the last question – if matrimony could be the supreme measure, there is a 1percent success rate (two involvements from 200-odd activities).

The funny thing, Olivia claims, is actually she wasn’t truly selecting a relationship. She registered to Blind Date for a laugh and, ideally, a great balancing. She’d moved from Scotland to London a few decades earlier working in PR, along with perhaps not got a boyfriend since a long-lasting commitment at university. “London is actually a hardcore location… discover very nearly too many people. Young experts are very busy looking to get work sorted, some funds with each other, get on their own established.” She was just 29, but she’d abadndoned really love. “I was thinking, ‘It does not matter, i am delighted; other stuff in life are getting well.'”

“and that’s practically a realisation you must reach if you should be will be calm and delighted when you are into dates, rather than anxious and gibbering,” James includes. However, he gibbered for several he was really worth as he very first watched the girl. “i recall swearing under my personal breathing, ‘

Bloody

hell!'”

Did she clock his response? “No,” Olivia claims. “Not at all. He was very calm and collected. Really smooth. I just believed he appeared really friendly.”

James, who had been 30 during the time, had merely bought 1st residence, was actually getting on together with career as a chartered surveyor, and discovering Ms Appropriate simply wasn’t a priority. “I had been solitary for about a year. But I was active undertaking right up the house and it had been a long travel. It’s a silly justification, but I have been busy.”

They chatted and talked. They failed to kiss. The next day James texted to express he’d had a delightful time, and proposed they satisfy again. “A tip to all young men,” Olivia claims. “perform just what James did: follow through one-day after the big date, stating good situations. He said I happened to be radiant business. That was great.”

There is no kiss on second date, either: “It didn’t look correct, and that I’m most likely a wimp,” James says. But on the next, “Olivia went in for the hug. Let me say it was because i am too gentlemanly to make myself upon the lady, it may possibly you need to be that she had been some bolder.”

Now they certainly were one or two? Ah, no, which was date four, he states, when he reciprocated. It turned out snowing: “all of a sudden there was clearly practically a foot of snowfall in Battersea. It was a nightmare for truth be told there, nonetheless it was actually merely beautiful are on a date together with your new girl as well as for indeed there become this blanket of accumulated snow. We strolled to a Gypsy jazz bar and in the end we plucked within the bravery and stated, ‘It looks rather slidy and icy down there, we would not make it. Therefore, when do not, i’ll kiss at this point you.'”

There will be something very passionate about James and Olivia. You can imagine James laying his coat over a puddle for Olivia and producing sonnets for her when the sun goes down. Olivia delivered the woman Blind Date request in nine months before the guy did, and he claims it is astounding how Anna waited all that for you personally to complement the woman up with him. (the truth is more prosaic – there are plenty even more women than guys queueing up for times.) At one point, the guy discusses just how the guy enjoys enjoying Olivia from across a room at a celebration, watching exactly how hard she operates to make other people feel good about by themselves.

As a couple, Stef and Graham could not become more various. They fork out a lot of their time laughing at each various other, using piss. Both are dry, and incredibly amusing. Like James, Graham seems as though he’s obtained the lottery, and like Olivia, Stef looks in control. She says she actually is the one who organises every thing in which he carries the bags.

Stef, today 27, a music teacher from London, and Graham, today 30, a web designer from Bury, found at a burger bar. Once Stef got truth be told there, Graham had been regarding the gin and tonic. He was scared, according to him. He’d maybe not told anybody he had been happening a blind go out. In his journal, the guy simply published, “Out.”

“It was just after, when it choose to go really, that we confessed to prospects what I’d already been performing.”

“i possibly could currently really odd,” Stef says.

Graham: “She could have been.”

Stef: “But I am not, however.”

The thing that was his biggest anxiety? “Having a junk time and discovering you’re rubbish in a national newsprint. In case you are rubbish on a normal blind day, you don’t ordinarily determine.”

“But here anyone could point out that women’s really odd, and then it really is in a national newspaper,” Stef adds. “I didn’t think it over until I check the earlier week’s Blind Date, as well as actually failed to like each other and quickly I’m, ‘Oh my personal Jesus, i am doing that a few weeks. This might not be since amusing when I believed it might.'”

What happened to be the woman very first thoughts of him? “He’s not my personal sort. I do not typically try for reasonable tresses. He appeared really friendly together with a nice smile.”

Understanding her regular kind? “Dark tresses. Unfriendly!” She giggles. “Definitely darker. Tough. Handsome. Hahaha! I am only kidding!”

“She understands just how good-looking i’m.” Graham smiles. You look somewhat like Jamie Oliver, I state.

“similar to Wallace from
Wallace & Gromit
,” Stef claims. “While I started initially to enjoy him was actually when I reached understand him, outside the nationwide press-organised date.”

After their hamburgers, they moved ingesting, played pool and danced till 2am. Had been there any bodily contact? “we banged my at once the pool table,” Graham claims. “I found myself twisting right down to access an errant ball and Stef place the woman hand back at my mind.”

“I really don’t just remember that ,…” Stef claims.

“… to soothe me.”

“i do believe you’re creating that upwards.”

“No,” Graham insists, “we distinctly recall you’d incredibly cold arms, it actually was like an ice package. Brilliant. So there had been some actual contact.”

“and now we kissed from the lips,” Stef adds. “He went set for one. We reciprocated some. It actually was an enjoyable hug.”

Performed she genuinely believe that was actually her sorted for lifetime?

“Nope. I thought he was a rather wonderful man. The guy did make me personally have a good laugh, he had been excellent, really sort, and helpful in your kitchen – as they say in Bridget Jones. Only little things he’d do; he aided myself create 120 chocolate truffles one day.”

“And I scarcely consumed them,” Graham says. “Anybody who knows myself will know just how restrained that was.”

They have been having their hair cut side by side, before the shoot, talking-to both through decorative mirrors. We question them what their own earlier is – did they usually have profitable interactions beforehand? Stef laughs. “Well, clearly not

that

effective.”

Has either ones already been hitched prior to?

Graham: “No.”

Stef: “I have, in fact.” Silence. The seconds tick by. “No, I haven’t. I am merely fooling.”

Graham looks only a little clammy: “you have got me somewhat stressed subsequently.”

She says she never thought of by herself given that marrying type; still doesn’t. He looks concerned once more.

“It

will

happen,” he says. “you concurred.”

36 months after their particular very first day, Graham proposed to Stef. These were away with Graham’s family members over xmas, it was midnight plus they happened to be beginning their unique stockings. She believed he had been joking. “He bought me one range glove and a bottle of whisky,” she says.

“I’d been great deal of thought from inside the days before xmas, and I’d decided that I happened to be planning to get it done but had not rather determined whenever or where,” Graham says. “I didn’t like to plan it too much because i decided to finish as well stressed. I thought I would merely hold back until when was correct, therefore performed feel correct then.”

“I found myself during my pyjamas. And I also didn’t come with make-up on,” Stef claims. “I was a bit grubby, quite gross.”

“She was not gross after all.”

“we held claiming, ‘will you be kidding?’ their household ‘ve got a gorgeous dog and I also stated, ‘may be the dog going to come operating in with a camera on his visit capture the moment once I’m entirely humiliated because we said certainly you were joking?'”

Performed he imagine she’d state yes? “I found myself silently positive. She is only individual.”

James’s suggestion to Olivia had been significantly more baroque. “i did not desire to be like everyone else. We were planning see a matinee within National Theatre, and I also believed, ‘Why not do it here?'” He rang in the theatre and questioned if there is a private spot to suggest. “On a whim, I mentioned, ‘I cannot suppose you can acquire myself onto among the many phases?'” Come Sunday lunchtime, Olivia ended up being depriving but James insisted on a spontaneous concert tour regarding the theater. He chose that after they surely got to the period of this
Olivier theatre
, he would suggest. “we had gotten down on my personal knee, and she very fast mentioned indeed and hugged me. Eventually, when she I would ike to get, i obtained the band away from my wallet.”

Performed either of those previously think they’d fulfill their particular husband or wife on a blind day? You need to be joking, Olivia says. They didn’t anticipate to get hitched complete stop – James because his moms and dads’ separation and divorce place him from the idea, and Olivia because she’d abadndoned finding some one. Today, James states, he thinks there is something breathtaking about a public announcement of really love. They discuss their unique programs for future years – the marriage then summertime, Blind Date babies to follow ideally, though they will most likely not consider them when it comes to those terms.

As for Graham, according to him he keeps thinking back once again to that little form they loaded in for the blind day. “The terror I became experiencing before that first night…” He trails off, and begins once again. “But thinking back again to that first-night, we had gotten on so well, it doesn’t shock myself anyway we’re right here now.”

As he talks, Stef walks outside of the modifying space in her own bridal dress. His lips opens up, cartoon-like, in question. She smiles at him. “You look gorgeous,” the guy whispers. “are you going to get married me?”

What they thought in those days: Blind time 19 December 2009

Stef on Graham

Initial impressions?

Warm, amusing, attractive. And forgiving: I found myself late.

What did you talk about?

Music, comedy, meals, poor dance.

Any uncomfortable times?

Only if we were playing swimming pool – neither of us are fantastic players.

Great table ways?

Flawless, although it was hamburgers. He faced a perfect go out challenge really.

Best thing about him?

Actually authentic and friendly.

Did you embark on somewhere?

No, however we failed to leave till 2am.

Marks regarding 10?

9 (becoming an instructor, I will never give full marks).

Could you satisfy once more?

I would like to, yeah.

Graham on Stef

Initial thoughts?

Effortlessly breathtaking and unforgivably late. But she had phoned.

What do you explore?

Music, cooking and just why Abba would be the biggest pop group ever.

Any awkward times?

Not really.

Good dining table manners?

I have never seen a hamburger crammed into a face with these elegance and finesse.

Best thing about the girl?

Whoever understands the full regimen to Saturday Night Fever and is ready to strut their stuff results very with me.

Did you embark on someplace?

Money machine, shuttle stop.

Markings of 10?

9. might have been higher but we lost a video game of share.

Could you fulfill once more?

Yes, it’d be fantastic to get it done once more.

Whatever they thought in the past: Blind big date 8 January 2011

Olivia on James

Initially thoughts?

Wise, courteous, friendly smile. I thought, “Great, i’m going to be in great business today!”

Just what do you discuss?

Very early aspirations to be hired for the arts, outdated cinemas and pubs, owning a home, Eddie Izzard’s theory on pet therapy, analysing Harry Potter; plus sailing tales and how Jaws features traumatised united states both forever. We’d a great deal in keeping.

Any embarrassing moments?

We did believe it amusing that people had been so well attended by the cafe team.

Great table manners?

Flawless.

Best thing about him?

He could be excited about their passions, in which he’s entertaining and a gentleman.

Did you continue someplace?

No, we were having such a great time it actually was shutting time before we realized it.

Marks out-of 10?

I cannot contemplate whatever would shed him a spot.

Might you meet once again?

We exchanged numbers, therefore we’ll see!

James on Olivia

Initial impressions?

Strikingly fairly. I showed up early, but she was already indeed there. She looked great, as well as the bistro lighting made the scene resemble a
Vettriano
paint.

Just what did you explore?

Cubism, Aperol, cruising, synaesthesia, Yorkshire, Venice, Harry Potter, marathon instruction, Glasgow, siblings, sleeper trains, bleak landscapes, basking sharks.

Any shameful moments?

Not too we remember.

Good dining table ways?

Impeccable.

Best thing about the girl?

We spoke continuous – perhaps one of the most enjoyable discussions I’ve had.

Do you go on someplace?

No. We left after everybody else had opted while the bistro started to close at 12.30.

Marks of 10?

9.

Do you really meet again?

Our company is choosing beverages shortly.

To get involved in Guardian sunday’s Blind Date, email
blind.date@guardian.co.uk
.

Wish to meet similar people and find fantastic times? Get in on the Guardian’s very own dating site,
Soulmates
.