Lauren Speed and Cameron Hamilton stole our lil’ hearts on Love Is Blind and actually found love. They are still together today and stopped by BuzzFeed to spill about what it was actually like being on the show. Here are 12 things we learned from their visit.
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1. Who you dated in the pods depended on rankings given by each contestant after a few rounds of quicker dating sessions.
Lauren: “When you start out, it’s 15 women and 15 men. So we all kind of date each other for the first couple days and see who makes connections. Starting out, since it was so many people, the dates were shorter, maybe 7–10 minutes…we had a sheet where we’d rank one through five. So we’d say who our top people were and then if you matched up with somebody it was like, oh these two like each other! So you’d date your top three, and everyone would get into this flow of people they liked.”
2. Towards the end, the pod dates could last up to five hours per date.
Lauren: “As the time prolonged and as people started to get connected and matching up, the dates would get longer, maybe four to five hours. But then you’d still be dating multiple people, so dating total a day could be 16-hour days!”
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3. It was “strongly suggested” to wait to break up or stay together at the altar. Other than that, there were no “rules.”
Lauren: “You knew what you signed up for. If you want to get married, do it — if not, don’t. No one was held against their will. We could leave when we wanted to. It was up to us if we wanted to move forward or not.”
Cameron: “No one needed to get engaged. It was all based on your free will. We knew the deal was if you got engaged, you have to go to the altar.”
Lauren: “If you decided to say no, you had to say it at the altar. Well, it was strongly suggested.”
4. The boys’ and girls’ sleeping quarters were close enough, and there were two people to a room.
Lauren: “It was great. Our side was like a sorority side, the guys’ was like a fraternity. We can hear each other yelling, like, ‘Hi guysss, we love you’ and yell back and forth.”
P.S. Lauren’s roommate was Amber, and Cameron’s was Carlton.
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5. If you realized you weren’t a romantic fit with someone, contestants would spend time talking about other people they were interested in — or take a nap.
Cameron: “Some people slept in the pods. And sometimes you’d realize you weren’t going to connect with someone, so you’d spend that time talking to someone about who you were interested in. Or trying to give the other person some insight about who they were interested in. For example, I talked to Jessica a lot about her interests in Mark and Barnett, and I talked to her about Lauren.”
Lauren: “There was an allotted time for dates. So say if it was two hours that day, you’d have two hours with that person. Though some people, if you didn’t match with someone, they’d be like, ‘Okay, this isn’t a romantic match.’ They’d just nap for two hours.”
6. The prodcution paid for the wedding, but there was a budget.
Lauren: “Netflix provided a budget for us to get our wedding dresses. But if we went over that budget, we’d have to pay if it was the dress we wanted.”
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7. Contestants really helped make decisions for the wedding. It was like planning for a wedding at super speed.
Lauren: “We got to choose things like the type of flowers we wanted, the color scheme, our wedding dresses and bridesmaids dresses. We had a nice amount of say on what we wanted it to look like. We didn’t pick the venue, but it turned out great!”
Cameron: “The decisions were super accelerated. So one day it’s cake, the next day it’s the decorations or whatever, the next day it’s the wedding rings. It was back-to-back-to-back.”
8. Wine, beer, soda, and snacks were all free flowing in the pods. If you needed something, it could be requested.
Lauren: “We walked in there, it was set up waiting for us. We have our little choice of beverages. Wines, shots…there were snacks. I would bring snacks in with me. I keep snacks…sometimes even if you’re having a date, I could be like, ‘Hey guys, can somebody bring me some wine?’ and there would be, like, somebody in all black like, here you go!'”
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9. They didn’t really know much about what was going on with other couples post-pods:
Lauren: “For us, we were watching it all play out like the rest of the world. It was our first time seeing it. As for Jessica, I didn’t know that was going on!”
Cameron: “Yeah, we had no idea! I was talking to her in the pods, and she made it sound like Barnett and Mark were 50/50. She didn’t know at the time which one she really wanted to go for. I was trying to push her towards Mark.”
Lauren: “I think everyone was.”
10. Giannina and Damian really did get into a fight in front of everyone at Barnett’s party.
Lauren: “That whole thing was so strange. We had this awkward moment with Damian, something was going on between those two and it spilled over into the party. And Giannina stormed off and wouldn’t have their argument elsewhere. I was just trying to eat my food. “
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11. Everyone had their face-to-face reveal on the same day.
Lauren: “It was the reveal and then the following day we went to Mexico!”
12. Cameron and Lauren now have a dog together (okay, that’s not really a secret about the actual show, but it’s cute.)
Cameron: “One thing for my mom was I told her about the fact that I agreed to get a dog with Lauren if we got married. And my mom new I was very adamant about not having a dog, so she knew it was for real.”
Lauren: “Now we have a little Airedale puppy. He’s our little fur baby. Sparx. A boy. Our baby boy! Fur baby boy.”
