It was billed as a "groundbreaking social experiment" in which volunteers are encouraged to get married to a total stranger.
But Channel 4's controversial show Married at First Sight in Britain has been repeatedly delayed after struggling to find contestants who are willing to make it to the altar.
The show, a hit in Denmark and the US, claims to "question our assumptions about romantic love". However, producers have repeatedly been forced to recast the UK version as a succession of contributors have dropped out, unwilling to go through with a marriage arranged by a panel of experts in "psychology, psychotherapy, social and evolutionary anthropology, and theology".
The three couples are told they will meet for the first time at their wedding "in front of family and friends".
The producers of the UK edition are attempting to cast the show for a third time, meaning filming of the marriages will be delayed until 2015. "They just can't get people to stick with it," a programme source said. "The first lot of contributors fell through. Then, from the second lot of couples, one member of each couple dropped out. There's family pressure and a lot of them get cold feet. If somebody has really got cold feet you can't force them into it. It puts the production company into difficult territory."
