{"id":493392,"date":"2025-10-12T10:56:11","date_gmt":"2025-10-12T10:56:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/493392\/"},"modified":"2025-10-12T10:56:11","modified_gmt":"2025-10-12T10:56:11","slug":"edinburgh-mafs-bride-says-application-process-is-not-for-the-faint-hearted","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/493392\/","title":{"rendered":"Edinburgh MAFS bride says application process is ‘not for the faint-hearted’"},"content":{"rendered":"

An Edinburgh bride<\/a> who is appearing on Married at First Sight UK<\/a> has revealed the ‘long’ process of applying for the series.<\/p>\n

The hit E4 show sees hopeful singles paired up with a spouse by dating experts, and then marry them before even meeting them. Leisha Lightbody, 31, was paired with Essex<\/a> lad Reiss.<\/p>\n

She first applied for the show in June 2024, and was told they had found her a husband in December. She left for filming in March, but had a ‘thorough’ process to go through before she was behind the camera.<\/p>\n

Leisha says she went through psych evaluations, medical tests, several zoom meetings, trips to London and had numerous forms to fill out before her casting was confirmed.<\/p>\n

Speaking on social media, Leisha told fans: “I was basically sat at work on my break scrolling through social media, and the advert came up – Married at First Sight.<\/p>\n

“At the time I had just come out of a six year relationship. I was heartbroken, and to be fair I was sick of the dating scene.<\/p>\n

“People are savage. It’s not the way it used to be back in the day where people would actually take you out on dates and actually treat you nice.<\/p>\n

“I’m a bit of a soft girl at heart and I just thought ‘I can’t deal with this’, so when I saw the advert I thought yes – that’s a bit of me.”<\/p>\n

After applying, Leisha got a phone call from casting the following day. After a short chat, she was invited for a zoom meeting to discuss the next steps.<\/p>\n

She continues: “I had my first zoom meeting, and it was brilliant. It was about an hour and it was recorded.<\/p>\n

“Then basically you go through a lot of different stages. It’s not for the faint-hearted. If you apply and you think you’re going to get on it, it is a long, long, long process.<\/p>\n

Sign up for<\/b> Edinburgh Live newsletters <\/b> <\/a> for more headlines straight to your inbox.<\/b><\/p>\n

“There’s so many different stages. You’ve got to go through psych assessments, love experts, you’ve got to fill out all these documents.<\/p>\n

“They really do make sure you are the right kind of person for the show. Also, they want to make sure you do get the right person.”<\/p>\n

Leisha says she was back and forth to London around two or three times during the casting process. Coming up and down from Scotland, she admits it was a ‘trek’.<\/p>\n

She added: “Be prepared for that if you live far away from London that you’re probably going to need some time off from work as well.<\/p>\n

“Set aside some time to fill out the forms properly, because they are big forms. Also, I would just say – be completely honest with what you want and who you are as a person.<\/p>\n

“At the end of the day, you want to be matched with the correct person. If you lie, it’s not going to be authentic to you.”<\/p>\n

Join<\/b> Edinburgh Live’s Whatsapp Community here <\/b> <\/a> and get the latest news sent<\/b> straight to your messages.<\/b><\/p>\n

As well as forms, interviews and psych evaluations – potential cast mates also have to through medical tests.<\/p>\n

Leisha told fans: “You go through your medical history, they’ll get your doctors reports and you’ll get hair samples as well like drug testing.<\/p>\n

“It is very very thorough. I applied in June last year, and I only got told that I was on the show and that they’d found my husband in December.<\/p>\n

“Then I went on the show in March. It is a long process, I was in November being like ‘am I not going to get told? Am I on the show?’<\/p>\n

“There’s a lot of stages, and they could have found me a husband and then in January he could’ve pulled out and that was me done. So it’s quite scary, until you’re actually on the show nothing in guaranteed.<\/p>\n

“Just go for it guys! I applaud you.”<\/p>\n

Married at First Sight UK returns on Sunday night at 9pm, and casting for the next series is open now.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An Edinburgh bride who is appearing on Married at First Sight UK has revealed the ‘long’ process of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":493393,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8816],"tags":[748,156842,1102,4884,162513,4156,162514,712,16,15,162515],"class_list":{"0":"post-493392","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-edinburgh","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-casting","10":"tag-edinburgh","11":"tag-great-britain","12":"tag-leisha-lightbody","13":"tag-married-at-first-sight","14":"tag-married-at-first-sight-uk","15":"tag-scotland","16":"tag-uk","17":"tag-united-kingdom","18":"tag-zoom-meetings"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115360837686766493","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/493392","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=493392"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/493392\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/493393"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=493392"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=493392"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=493392"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}