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You wait ages for a Blind Date wedding…

This article is more than 11 years old
… and then two come along at once. We tell the stories of two couples who found love on the pages of Guardian Weekend

If it wasn't love at first sight, it was pretty damn close. This is how James Reeves recorded his first impressions of Olivia Rickman on 8 January 2011, in Weekend magazine: "Strikingly pretty. I arrived early, but she was already there. She looked great, and the restaurant lighting made the scene look like a Vettriano painting." It wasn't simply what she looked like, though. They talked about: "Cubism, Aperol, sailing, synaesthesia, the size of Yorkshire…," said James at the time. And he'd barely begun. "…Venice, Harry Potter, Peggy Guggenheim, marathon training, Glasgow, siblings, sleeper trains, bleak landscapes, the attentiveness of the staff, basking sharks." Olivia's account was less florid, but equally glowing. Marks out of 10? "I can't think of anything that would lose him a point."

That blind date happened in December 2010. Two years later, just before Christmas, Weekend received an email from James: "Olivia and I are getting married." He thanked us profusely, and the next day cycled in with a box of chocolates.

It was our first Blind Date wedding. After three years and 11 months, and 200-plus dates, we'd finally pulled it off.

A week later we got a call from another pair of Blind Daters: Stefanie Stewart-Hodges and Graham Lyons. They were also getting married. This was becoming dangerously like a habit. But, once again, the signs were there from the start. "Effortlessly beautiful," said Graham in December 2009. Would Stefanie like to see him again? "I'd really like to, yeah."

Both couples say they are gradualists. No need to hurry: they'll marry in the fullness of time. But Weekend is not so restrained. So we rush them into a studio to mock up the big day. Olivia is changing into her wedding dress by the time I arrive, and James is suited and booted. When she emerges fully dressed, he looks at her adoringly. He doesn't quite seem to believe his luck.

It's four years since Weekend started the Blind Date column. Anna Chesters, who sets up the encounters, says she looks for three things: age, location and common interests. If two people do the same job, she rules them out – too much of a busman's holiday. In the early days, people used to send in pictures. Now she asks them not to, although very occasionally Blind Daters have complained that their partners do not match them in the looks department. Women applicants outweigh men by 20 to one. "They're generally more willing to have fun," Anna says, "and more confident about it. The men tend to be nervous."

The dates don't always go well. First impressions have ranged from "Too damned tall" to "25 minutes late and didn't really apologise" and, most uncompromisingly, "That's not Anne Hathaway". Any awkward moments? "He took my photo and uploaded it on Instagram." "I'd run out of things to say, so we walked to the tube in silence." "He asked if I owned a corset within 10 minutes... I didn't know what to say when he suggested we 'call a spade a spade and leave it at tonight'."

There's something painfully personal about Blind Date: the bottom line is, it could be me – or you. When daters hate each other, we wince. When they are nice about each other but then give low marks, we feel cheated. When they are vile about each other but give high marks, we feel confused. When they complain about their partners being too short or too tall, or say they wish they'd been stuck in traffic, or a woman moans that the man didn't pay for her taxi home, readers email to rail against heightism, bitchiness and sexism. Sometimes daters go the other way: they're too polite, they agree to give each other the same scores and consult on comments. And, on rare occasions, they adore each other.

Any blind date is scary, but throw in an appearance in a national newspaper, a warts'n'all photoshoot, a series of embarrassing questions (table manners, awkward moments, did you kiss?) and a scorecard, and you wonder why anybody would do it. What's in it for them besides a free meal? And what's the chance of finding true love on a date set up by a stranger? Actually, we can answer the last question – if marriage is the ultimate measure, we have a 1% success rate (two engagements from 200-odd encounters).

The funny thing, Olivia says, is she wasn't really looking for a relationship. She signed up to Blind Date for a laugh and, hopefully, a nice evening out. She'd moved from Scotland to London a few years earlier to work in PR, and had not had a boyfriend since a long-term relationship at university. "London is a tough place… there are almost too many people. Young professionals are so busy trying to get work sorted, some money together, get themselves settled." She was only 29, but she'd given up on love. "I thought, 'It doesn't matter, I'm happy; other things in life are going really well.'"

Olivia Rickman and James Reeves
Olivia wears silk dress, £1,815, VWDC by charliebrear.com. Photograph: Jay Brooks

"Which is almost a realisation you have to come to if you're going to be calm and happy when you go into dates, rather than nervous and gibbering," James adds. Having said that, he gibbered for all he was worth when he first saw her. "I remember swearing under my breath, 'Bloody hell!'"

Did she clock his reaction? "No," Olivia says. "Not at all. He was very calm and collected. Very smooth. I just thought he looked really friendly."

James, who was 30 at the time, had just bought his first house, was getting on with his career as a chartered surveyor, and finding Ms Right simply wasn't a priority. "I had been single for about a year. But I was busy doing up my house and it was a long commute. It's a silly excuse, but I had been busy."

They talked and talked. They didn't kiss. The next day James texted to say he'd had a wonderful time, and suggested they meet again. "A tip to all boys," Olivia says. "Do what James did: follow up one day after the date, saying nice things. He said I was glowing company. That was really nice."

There was no kiss on the second date, either: "It didn't seem right, and I'm probably a wimp," James says. But on the third, "Olivia went in for the kiss. I'd like to say it was because I'm too gentlemanly to force myself upon her, but it might also just be that she was a bit bolder."

So now they were a couple? Ah, no, that was date four, he says, when he reciprocated. It had been snowing: "Suddenly there was almost a foot of snow in Battersea. It was a nightmare to get there, but it was just beautiful to be on a date with your new girl and for there to be this blanket of snow. We walked to a Gypsy jazz bar and eventually I plucked up the courage and said, 'It looks quite slidy and icy down there, we might not make it. So, in case we don't, I'm going to kiss you now.'"

There is something incredibly romantic about James and Olivia. You could imagine James laying his coat over a puddle for Olivia and composing sonnets for her by night. Olivia sent her Blind Date request in nine months before he did, and he says it is astonishing how Anna waited all that time to match her up with him. (The reality is more prosaic – there are so many more women than men queueing up for dates.) At one point, he talks about how he loves watching Olivia from across a room at a party, observing how hard she works to make others feel good about themselves.

As a couple, Stef and Graham could not be more different. They spend a lot of their time laughing at each other, taking the piss. Both are dry, and very funny. Like James, Graham looks as if he's won the lottery, and like Olivia, Stef seems in charge. She says she's the one who organises everything and he carries the bags.

Stef, now 27, a music teacher from London, and Graham, now 30, a web developer from Bury, met at a burger bar. By the time Stef got there, Graham was already on the gin and tonic. He was terrified, he says. He'd not told anybody that he was going on a blind date. In his diary, he just wrote, "Out."

"It was only after, when it had gone well, that I confessed to people what I'd been doing."

"I could have been really weird," Stef says.

Graham: "She could have been."

Stef: "But I'm not, though."

Stefanie Stewart-Hodges and Graham Lyons
‘Effortlessly beautiful’ was Graham's description of Stef after their Blind Date. Photograph: Jay Brooks for the Guardian

What was his greatest fear? "Having a crap time and finding out you're rubbish in a national newspaper. If you're rubbish on a normal blind date, you don't normally find out."

"But here the person could say that girl's really weird, and then it's in a national newspaper," Stef adds. "I didn't think about it until I read the previous week's Blind Date, and they really didn't like each other and suddenly I'm, 'Oh my God, I'm doing that next week. This might not be as funny as I thought it would.'"

What were her first impressions of him? "He's not my type. I don't normally go for fair hair. He looked very friendly and had a nice smile."

What is her normal type? "Dark hair. Unfriendly!" She giggles. "Definitely darker. Rugged. Handsome. Hahaha! I'm only kidding!"

"She knows how handsome I am." Graham smiles. You look a bit like Jamie Oliver, I say.

"More like Wallace from Wallace & Gromit," Stef says. "When I started to really like him was when I got to know him, outside of the national press-organised date."

After their burgers, they went drinking, played pool and danced till 2am. Was there any physical contact? "I banged my head on the pool table," Graham says. "I was bending down to retrieve an errant ball and Stef put her hand on my head."

"I don't remember that…" Stef says.

"… to soothe me."

"I think you're making that up."

"No," Graham insists, "I distinctly remember you had incredibly cold hands, it was like an ice pack. Brilliant. So there was some physical contact."

"And we kissed on the lips," Stef adds. "He went in for one. I reciprocated a bit. It was a nice kiss."

Did she think that was her sorted for life?

"Nope. I thought he was a very nice guy. He did make me laugh, he was very nice, very kind, and helpful in the kitchen – as they say in Bridget Jones. Just little things he'd do; he helped me make 120 chocolate truffles one day."

"And I barely ate any of them," Graham says. "Anybody who knows me will know how restrained that was."

They are having their hair cut side by side, before the shoot, talking to each other through the mirrors. I ask them what their previous is – did they have successful relationships beforehand? Stef laughs. "Well, obviously not that successful."

Has either of them been married before?

Graham: "No."

Stef: "I have, actually." Silence. The seconds tick by. "No, I haven't. I'm only joking."

Graham looks a little clammy: "You got me slightly worried then."

She says she never thought of herself as the marrying type; still doesn't. He looks worried again.

"It will happen," he says. "You've agreed."

Three years after their first date, Graham proposed to Stef. They were away with Graham's family over Christmas, it was midnight and they were opening their stockings. She thought he was joking. "He bought me a single oven glove and a bottle of whisky," she says.

"I'd been thinking about it in the weeks leading up to Christmas, and I'd decided that I was going to do it but hadn't quite decided when or where," Graham says. "I didn't want to plan it too much because I thought I'd end up too nervous. I thought I'd just wait until the moment was right, and it did feel right then."

"I was in my pyjamas. And I had no makeup on," Stef says. "I was a bit grubby, a bit gross."

"She wasn't gross at all."

"I kept saying, 'Are you kidding?' His family have got a lovely dog and I said, 'Is the dog going to come running in with a camera on his head to capture the moment when I'm totally humiliated because I said yes but you were kidding?'"

Did he think she'd say yes? "I was quietly confident. She's only human."

James's proposal to Olivia was somewhat more baroque. "I didn't want to be like everybody else. We were going to see a matinee at the National Theatre, and I thought, 'Why not do it there?'" He rang up the theatre and asked if there was a private place to propose. "On a whim, I said, 'I don't suppose you can get me on to one of the stages?'" Come Sunday lunchtime, Olivia was starving but James insisted on a spontaneous tour of the theatre. He decided that when they got to the stage of the Olivier theatre, he would propose. "I got down on my knee, and she very quickly said yes and hugged me. Eventually, when she let me go, I got the ring out of my pocket."

Did either of them ever think they'd meet their husband or wife on a blind date? You've got to be joking, Olivia says. They didn't expect to get married full stop – James because his parents' divorce put him off the idea, and Olivia because she'd given up on finding someone. Now, James says, he thinks there's something beautiful about a public declaration of love. They discuss their plans for the future – the wedding next summer, Blind Date babies to follow hopefully, though they probably won't think of them in those terms.

As for Graham, he says he keeps thinking back to that tiny form they filled in for the blind date. "The terror I was feeling before that first night…" He trails off, and starts again. "But thinking back to that first night, we got on so well, it doesn't surprise me at all that we're here today."

As he talks, Stef walks out of the changing room in her wedding dress. His mouth opens, cartoon-like, in wonder. She smiles at him. "You look beautiful," he whispers. "Will you marry me?"

What they thought back then: Blind date 19 December 2009

Stef Stewart-Hodges and Graham Lyons in 2009
Stef described Graham as 'friendly, funny, attractive' when they met in 2009

Stef on Graham

First impressions? Friendly, funny, attractive. And forgiving: I was late.

What did you talk about? Music, comedy, food, bad dancing.

Any awkward moments? Only when we were playing pool – neither of us are fabulous players.

Good table manners? Impeccable, even though it was burgers. He faced the ultimate date challenge well.

Best thing about him? Really genuine and friendly.

Did you go on somewhere? No, but then we didn't leave till 2am.

Marks out of 10? 9 (being a teacher, I can never give full marks).

Would you meet again? I'd really like to, yeah.

Graham on Stef

First impressions? Effortlessly beautiful and unforgivably late. But she had phoned.

What did you talk about? Music, cooking and why Abba are the greatest pop band ever.

Any awkward moments? Not really.

Good table manners? I've never seen a burger crammed into a face with such grace and finesse.

Best thing about her? Anyone who knows the full routine to Saturday Night Fever and is prepared to strut their stuff scores highly with me.

Did you go on somewhere? Cash machine, bus stop.

Marks out of 10? 9. Would have been higher but I lost a game of pool.

Would you meet again? Yes, it'd be great to do it again.

What they thought back then: Blind date 8 January 2011

Olivia and James in 2011
Olivia and James in 2011. Photographs: Graham Turner; Graeme Robertson

Olivia on James

First impressions? Smart, polite, friendly smile. I thought, "Great, I'll be in good company this evening!"

What did you talk about? Early ambitions to work in the arts, old cinemas and pubs, home ownership, Eddie Izzard's theory on cat psychology, analysing Harry Potter; plus sailing stories and how Jaws has traumatised us both for life. We had a lot in common.

Any awkward moments? We did think it funny that we were so well attended by all the restaurant staff.

Good table manners? Flawless.

Best thing about him? He is passionate about his interests, and he's hilarious and a gentleman.

Did you go on somewhere? No, we were having such a good time it was closing time before we knew it.

Marks out of 10? I can't think of anything that would lose him a point.

Would you meet again? We exchanged numbers, so we'll see!

James on Olivia

First impressions? Strikingly pretty. I arrived early, but she was already there. She looked great, and the restaurant lighting made the scene look like a Vettriano painting.

What did you talk about? Cubism, Aperol, sailing, synaesthesia, Yorkshire, Venice, Harry Potter, marathon training, Glasgow, siblings, sleeper trains, bleak landscapes, basking sharks.

Any awkward moments? Not that I remember.

Good table manners? Impeccable.

Best thing about her? We talked nonstop – one of the most enjoyable conversations I've had.

Did you go on somewhere? No. We left after everyone had gone and the restaurant started to close at 12.30.

Marks out of 10? 9.

Would you meet again? We are going for drinks soon.

To take part in Guardian Weekend's Blind Date, email blind.date@guardian.co.uk.

Want to meet like-minded people and find great dates? Join the Guardian's own dating site, Soulmates.

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