Exploring Arranged Marriage

Arranged: Exploring What It is Really like to Have an Arranged Marriage

TV3, Sundays from 20th March

While some people dream of meeting their life partner in a chance encounter, for others chance has nothing to do with it. This fascinating 8-part series provides a unique and privileged insight into the age-old practice of arranged marriage and the New Zealanders putting faith in their families to find their beloved. Popping the question, would you trust your parents to choose your life partner?

Arranged goes behind the scenes to witness families scour the globe for a suitable spouse for their child, and couples tie the knot in extravagant and eye-opening cultural ceremonies, committing to lifelong matrimony with someone they barely know.

Meet couples, who in this modern day, have chosen to forgo Tinder and take a gamble on an arranged marriage.

Join Hindu bachelor Bikram Singh as he flies to India in the hopes of getting engaged to a woman he has never met.

See tradition turned on its head as Wellington bachelorette Bhumika, who had hoped for a “love marriage,” decides to take fate into her own hands by going undercover as her own parents on an arranged marriage website to find her future husband.

Share the nervousness as Sudanese Muslim Ramez prepares to leave behind the grandmother who raised her to marry Ahmed, a fellow refugee from Eritrea, a man she has never even kissed.

Arranged uncovers many different cultures and religions keeping arranged marriage alive and well here in New Zealand, including the Hindu, Muslim, Christian and Sikh faiths. It unveils the beautiful and elaborate cultural rituals, ceremonies, and festivities that accompany the modern arranged wedding.

Love is a gamble. Sometimes you win and sometimes you lose, but is this tradition really that much different to finding a match elsewhere? And with much thought, care and detective work being put into the matching of spouses, is the marriage success rate higher?

Long seen as a tradition that allows spouses no choice in their life partner,Arranged offers some different perspectives and lifts the lid on the very different way that many Kiwis say “I do.”

Arranged was produced by Julia Parnell for Notable Pictures

Notable Pictures is a film and television production company founded in 2010. In a few short years, Notable Pictures has built a reputation for telling quality, compelling stories across a diverse range of formats, primarily factual series, documentaries and short films. Notable Pictures is also in its third year running the innovative digital initiative Loading Docs, which funds, produces and distributes 10 3-minute documentary shorts.

Julia Parnell is an award-winning producer and documentary director, and director of Notable Films. Starting her film and television career in 1997 by attending South Seas Film and Television School in Auckland, New Zealand. From there, she went on to work at several independent television companies before staring her career as an independent producer in 2004.

Within her 12-year career as an independent, she has created a diverse range of factual television projects, short films, documentaries and documentary series, with a particular emphasis on stories exploring New Zealand’s ethnic diversity (Relocating Mountains, Minority Voices, Both Worlds, The Festival and Arranged). In 2010, Julia was awarded the Women In Film and Television NZ - Woman to Watch Award, having been a finalist in the same category in 2009.

Arranged was made with the support of New Zealand On Air Special Interest Fund for TV3.

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