The saying goes that love finds you, you don’t find it - but many people aren’t prepared to sit around and wait for their one true love to find them. That’s why there’s so many TV shows, both here in the UK and over in the US, which are all about helping people to find relationships.
From Love Island to First Dates, and Love Is Blind to Married at First Sight, the list goes on and on. Contestants going on these shows are hoping to find romance when they take part, and these lucky couples actually did find lasting love when they took part.
All of these pairs first locked eyes in front of TV cameras, but their romances have blossomed off screen and many are now engaged, married or have started a family together.
Have a click through our gallery to see who got the ultimate reality show prize - love.
5. Olivia Buckland and Alex Bowen
Olivia Buckland and Alex Bowen met on ITV’s Love Island in the summer of 2016. They coupled up during the show and went on to come second place. Bowen then proposed to Buckland on New Year’s Eve that same year. They married almost two years later, in September 2018, and went on to welcome their first child in 2022. Their son, Abel Jacob Bowen, was born in June 2022. | Getty Images
6. Mike Sumner and Zoe Welch
Mike Sumner and Zoe Welch met when they were matched on Channel 4’s First Dates in March 2020, and are remembered for Zoe’s impressive downing of a pint. They got married in September 2022 after Mike, who has Motor Neurone Disease, was given just five years to live. They planned to honeymoon in Italy in 2023. | SWNS
7. Jamie Otis and Doug Hehner
Jamie Otis and Doug Hehner met on the US version of Married at First Sight back in 2014. It wasn’t exactly love at first sight for this pair, and Jamie took her time to find the chemistry with her husband, but they’ve been together ever since and now have two children together. They share six-year-old daughter, Henley, and a three-year-old son, Hendrix. They suffered a miscarriage with their first child, a son called Jonathan. In December 2023, they revealed they would like to have another child and in March 2024 Otis announced on her Instagram page that she was pregnant with twins. They are expecting identical twin boys later in 2024. | Getty Images for A+E Networks
8. Melissa Rawson and Bryce Ruthven
Melissa Rawson and Bryce Ruthven met on the Austrailian version of Married at First Sight in 2021. They were a controversial couple, clashing with others in the show and facing difficulties of their own, but they are still together now. They got engaged in real life in 2021 and later in the same year welcomed twin boys, Levi and Tate. They married in February 2023. Credit: Instagram/bryceruthven | Instagram/bryceruthven