Love Is Blind production secrets: 15 behind the scenes facts of how the show is really made

Love Is Blind is one of the wildest shows on at the moment – so it should come as no surprise to anybody that the process of getting such great TV comes with a lot going on behind the scenes and lots of production secrets.

On the show we see 30 singles get into the famous pods and date without seeing each other. They then make meaningful connections, and end up getting engaged, still without seeing the other person. This leads to love triangles, arguments and whole lot of drama.

Watching the show, you might have a lot of questions as to how it all works. How long are they even in the pods for? Where do they live? Do they pay for the rings themselves? Here are all the very best production secrets behind making Love Is Blind on Netflix.

At first the pod dates are short and like speed dating

Right, let’s get straight into the timings and logistics of how the dates work. It’s been confirmed that the first round of dates in the pods, with everyone involved, last around seven to 10 minutes each, and are more like speed dating.

As time goes on and people get to know each other and build connections, they would then go up to around 30 minutes with up to eight people, before having no limit with a couple of people. The show’s creator confirmed it is completely the cast member’s decisions who they chat to, and for how long.

The pods are soundproof, and they hear each other through speakers in the room

When the dates are going on, the cast members aren’t actually hearing each other through the wall between them, because the booths are soundproof to stop them hearing each other’s dates in the other pods. Instead, the rooms are hooked up with speakers in, so they can only hear the person they are on a date with.

The longest date was between three and four hours and people fell asleep in the pods

In an interview with Entertainment Tonight, the show’s creator Chris Coelen confirmed the longest pod date was between three and four hours. “One of the things I was amazed by was that they didn’t want to leave the pods, ever,” he said. “They just wanted to be in the pods and spend as much time as they possibly could in there because they took it seriously and were truly falling for people. I think they were having fun doing it. We, of course, had to take them out of the pods to go to the bathroom, or to do an interview, eat or sleep. Sometimes people would even fall asleep in the pods, and we’d just let them.”

The pod section of the show lasts about 10 days

If you’re wondering how long the daters spend in the pod section, this part of filming lasts around 10 days. It starts with the full cast of around 30 people and during the 10 days some singles are let go, which is why we don’t see them all dating. “There was a certain point where we did a whittling down of people just to focus internally on the people who were really connecting, to allow them more time,” Chris Coelen said.

The cast members are given talking points for their pod dates

According to Sal from season two, cast members are given suggestions of things to talk about during their pod dates. He said they are given “talking points” and “questions” before heading into their dates, but they don’t have to use them. Kyle from season two added: “There were kind of topics for the day. It was good if there was a lull in conversation, you just refer to the little notebook and you can drum up conversation.”

They are also allowed to talk about how they look, despite the show being about the complete opposite. Previous cast members have said they have described their celebrity lookalikes and have asked dates what they look like during the process.

There are 20 pods in total

The dating pods are approximately 12 feet by 12 feet in size, and there are 20 pods all together – 10 for men and 10 for women. In between filming seasons, the pods are placed into storage and have been shipped across the country for filming in different locations.

The daters can request food and alcohol is provided

You’ve seen random bits of food in the pods for sure, and this is because the cast members can request any food or snacks they want. “We could request stuff. If you wanted a special snack they’d go run and get it. Bailey’s and coffee was my go-to,” Kenny Barnes from season one told Refinery29.

Alcohol was also provided for the daters – everything from the champagne we see them popping to the Jack Daniel’s we saw Shaina shotting at the pure thought of marrying Kyle in season two. There are said to be no restrictions on how much they drink and they could ask for whatever they wanted.

Living at the facility is like a ‘sorority’ but the living quarters aren’t exactly luxury

“Life at the facility felt like a sorority,” season one cast member Lauren Speed told OprahMag. “You’d think that people would be catty because some people would like the same guy. But we actually formed a sisterhood, no lie.” She added to Refinery29: “The girls were with the rest of the girls and the guys would be with the other guys. We did everything. We baked, we had a twerk class. We would just have conversations, talk to each other about our experience, play pool. It was literally a sorority.”

Kenny Barnes from season one told Refinery29 the guys did plank competitions, cooked together and went for runs. However, where the Love Is Blind cast members live and sleep is another of the production secrets, and it turns out it isn’t all luxury like the communal area we see on the show. Kenny revealed in season one they slept in trailers and they “were correctional facility beds”. Kenny also said at first filming was going on for between 18 and 20 hours a day, so sleeping definitely took a back seat.

The men are allowed to pick out a ring from a collection provided for them

One of the biggest production secrets and questions we all have whilst watching Love Is Blind is, who picks out the rings? Last season saw Kyle bring along his mother’s engagement ring, which begs the question of if they have to bring them along themselves, hoping they’ll make a connection. In a previous interview, the show’s creator has said the men have choice of some rings, offered to them in a collection from the production team. They could have one of these rings provided for them, “should they want to”.

“Since they were in the facility and weren’t able to go out into the ‘real world’ at that point, they couldn’t have been able to go [to a shop],” he said. “We wouldn’t have allowed them to at that point. It’s obviously such a gigantic moment in people’s lives that we wanted it to be as authentic to them as it possibly could be.”

The men are given the option to spend more out of their own pocket if they wish too. Some very intense watchers last season noticed that this “collection” of rings has meant the women on the show have been sporting the same rings. And of course, if they’re like Kyle, they may have brought a ring along with them.

The cast are paid to appear on the show

When you’re watching, you might be thinking how all these people managed to get so much time off work, and how they are going for this long appearing on a TV show without their earnings. It turns out the cast are paid for their time, but it really isn’t much. “The participants are paid little if anything,” a source close to the show told Women’s Health.

According to Us Weekly, a lawsuit filed by a season two contestant, Jeremy Hartwell, revealed in July 2022 that Netflix pays £885 per week and up to £7,080 for the length of the show.

They are not allowed their phone whilst filming the pods

No phones are allowed when filming for the show takes place. Cast members have their phones taken off them for the first two segments of the show, and only get them back when we see them returning to normal life. This is so they put all their focus into their dates and don’t contact people outside of the show. There is also no TV or WiFi.

Not all of the proposals make it on the show

Surprisingly, we don’t actually see all the proposals that take place. In season one there were two additional proposals which didn’t make it onto the show, and the same happened in season two. Producers have said they want to tell “diverse stories frankly” so had to choose which stories to follow.

Production gives the cast *some* money towards the weddings

One of the biggest kept secrets of Love Is Blind is if production pays for the weddings or if the cast members themselves do. “Of course production supplies some of the basics, but because these are their real weddings, it’s up to them as to how to spend their money,” a rep for the show told Women’s Health.

The show’s creator added: “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.”

The weddings really are planned by the cast

Chris Coelen said the cast did plan their own weddings, and production took a backseat here. “Aside from production logistics, we wanted them to really plan their weddings, and they did,” he said. “They would talk to one another about things like what they wanted, who they wanted to invite and what they wanted their vows to be.”

Yes, the weddings are legally binding

Despite what some may think about the show being all for drama, previous cast members have said the show is completely real, and the weddings are legally binding. Two couples from season two ended up getting divorced, and that would have all had to be done legally, like a normal divorce.

Three seasons of Love Is Blind are currently available on Netflix. For all the latest Netflix news, drops, quizzes and memes like The Holy Church of Netflix on Facebook. 

Related stories recommended by this writer:

• Unlimited alcohol and dating for hours: Secrets of how the Love Is Blind pods actually work

• A look inside the intense casting questionnaire and application process for Love Is Blind

• A relationship expert predicts which Love Is Blind season three couples will actually last