real life
Michelle Jenkins, 29, met the love of her life, Owen, now 35, on Channel 4’s Married At First Sight. Now they’ve welcomed their baby daughter, Jessica…
On the morning of our first wedding anniversary, my husband Owen made me breakfast in bed and gave me a sweet note he’d just written. It said, “I want you to know that I chose you. I want to spend the rest of our lives together.” It may seem an unusual thing to say a year into marriage, but Owen and I hadn’t exactly met in a conventional way…
The first time we ever laid eyes on each other was on our wedding day, a year earlier, in March 2020. Prior to that moment, we’d been complete strangers, both having applied to be participants on Channel 4’s Married At First Sight, a TV show where strangers meet on their wedding day after being matched my experts.
While Owen’s decision to apply to go on the show had been on a drunken whim, I’d put a bit more thought into it. After being single for three years at 25, I’d grown tired of dating apps and I liked the idea of an expert finding me the perfect guy. Following months of rigorous profiling, psychological tests and interviews, Owen and I were selected out of thousands of hopeful singletons and matched by a panel of professional matchmakers, who were convinced that we would fall in love and live happily ever after.
The first time I saw Owen at our wedding ceremony, I fancied him immediately and, as I reached the altar, he gave me a reassuring hug and said, “We’ve got this.” I knew then that everything was going to be OK. After an exciting blur of exchanging our vows and signing the register, we were finally ready to celebrate our wedding – and get know each other as husband and wife!
Owen, then 31, lived in Sheffield and worked as an IT sales manager. We clicked immediately and shared the same sense of humour. The added bonus was that our family and friends got on well, and our whole wedding day was amazing.
That night, Owen and I stayed up until 4am chatting about our lives and, during the honeymoon in Edinburgh, our attraction to one another grew quickly. When the UK went into lockdown shortly afterwards, we decided to isolate together. A few weeks into our marriage, we both said “I love you” and I have to admit, we made quite boring TV because there was zero drama between us.
At the end of filming in August 2020, Owen and I announced to the delighted matchmakers that we wanted to stay married and, soon afterwards, I permanently relocated from Sussex where I’d worked as a primary school teacher to live with Owen. Although it was hard leaving my family and friends and job, I was ready for a new adventure and
