Luke and Laura. David and Donna. Jim and Pam. If TV soap operas and dramas have proven anything over the past few decades, it's that weddings make for appointment television. And, in recent years, reality TV has realized the power of nuptials, offering fans countless wedding-related series. Now, with wedding television programming at a fever pitch on networks like WE tv, TLC, and even E! (as much as we'd like to forget about Kim Kardashian's wedding special), fans are about to be subjected to yet another round of glossy scenes when The Bachelorette star Ashley Hebert and J.P. Rosenbaum’s nuptials air as a special this Sunday on ABC. And as much as many reality TV detractors would like to roll their eyes, there's no denying the guilty pleasure has become a legitimate franchise.
But what's behind the televised wedding obsession? If you ask David Tutera, celebrity wedding planner and star of WE tv's My Fair Wedding, specials like Hebert and Rosenbaum's give fans the opportunity to live vicariously through stars' own dream weddings. “It’s truly about seeing the things that you just don’t get to see in every day lives,” Tutera tells Hollywood.com.
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Then, factor in the romance that appeals to our most intimate senses. “Everyone just likes a good love story,” Trista Sutter — who met her husband while starring on the first season on The Bachelorette and who then went on to have her own TV wedding special — says. “People love to fall in love. People love to watch it. That’s why it’s a huge ratings boost...The bottom line is that people love love stories."
And that's precisely why Hebert and Rosenbaum opted to televise their own wedding — for the fans. "I know for us, we went back and forth — we weren’t sure we wanted to do it," Hebert tells Hollywood.com. "One of the main reasons why we wanted to is because we had so much great support from people that have watched the show [The Bachelorette], that we kind of felt like it would all come full circle. And it kind of allowed people that spent so much of their emotion going through the relationship with me and with J.P. to really kind of celebrate and enjoy a happy ending.”
Ratings
If you ever needed concrete proof that TV weddings draw in the masses, look no further than the ratings. Sutter’s three-hour wedding special Trista & Ryan’s Wedding attracted 17.1 million viewers to ABC in 2003, according to the Hollywood Reporter. And the franchise did it again in March 2010 when Bachelor star Jason Mesnick's two-hour Bachelor special, The Bachelor: Jason and Molly’s Wedding, pulled in an impressive 9.3 million viewers in March 2010.
When reality star Kim Kardashian and her basketball player beau Kris Humphries tied the knot in 2011, their two-part, four-hour marathon bonanza brought in 4.4 million watchers on the first night alone. (The second part of Kim's Fairytale Wedding: A Kardashian Event averaged 4 million.) While this paled in comparison to the ratings the Bachelor weddings scored, it's clear fans still love a good celebrity wedding. Or any TV wedding, for that matter. In 2008, the Season 5 premiere of WE tv’s Bridezillas earned 1 million viewers, according TVWeek.com. By Season 9, those numbers quadrupled, with 4.4 million viewers watching the series, according to Lauren Gellert, SVP, Production & Development at WE tv.
Additionally, My Fair Wedding — hosted by Tutera (who has become something of a celebrity in his own right) — has attracted fans in the niche market. The series has grown from premiering to 710,000 viewers in Season 3 to 2.2 million viewers in Season 5, according to Gellert. Indeed, “Our wedding programming has done really well in the ratings,” she says.