Live: Married at First Sight NZ premiere

MAFS contestants.

We've got all the awkward action as 12 Kiwis agree to marry a complete stranger.

Will it be love at first sight? Or will their dream weddings become a nightmare?

So why would you go on the show?

Tauranga woman Lacey Swanepoel says she has "exhausted" all other methods of finding a man.

Swanepoel is one of the brides of Married At First Sight.

It was a genuine "opportunity", she said, to find her life partner, having explored other methods without success.

"I have tried all the usual ways of meeting people - friends, work, blind dates, online dating, Tinder."

She is looking for someone "dark and handsome".

She has had a couple of long-term relationships, including one which lasted for seven years, but is yet to find "the one".

Whether this happens on the show, she is keeping close to her chest for now, but says any man will have to accept her work priorities - she is a business consultant dividing her time between Auckland and Wellington, and her nickname on the show is "the boss".

"A partner would have to accept I can be busy at work. I am career driven . . . and I am not a party girl, I am a popcorn-and-movie type of girl."

The 30-year-old business consultant grew up in Tauranga having moved from South Africa, attending Otumoetai Primary School and Tauranga Girls' College. Her family, including her twin sister Skye, still live in Tauranga.

Parents Marius and Gail live in Pyes Pa. She wants she says to respect her family's privacy but doesn't feel nervous herself about becoming a household name, calling it a "life opportunity".

"Tauranga is a small place so I guess there will be a lot of people who know me and my twin, but I hope people respect my family's privacy."