“Now I’m happy!” says Alla Fedoruk, looking deep into the eyes of her fiancé, Matt Ryan.
Sounds like the epitome of romance, until you see the context: Fedoruk has just thrown a chair at Ryan, and the fiery passion blazing in her eyes is more contempt than courtship.
While the moment may not make for a happy marriage, it certainly makes amazing television. Welcome to “90 Day Fiancé,” where American singles have 90 days to make it to the altar with their international matches, who are in the US on K-1 nonimmigrant, or “fianc(é)e,” visas. The TLC show, premiering Sunday at 9 p.m., follows five couples who spend the three months trying to determine if their love can literally go the distance.
“It’s not that different from putting yourself out on the dating scene in your hometown,” says Ryan, who met the Ukrainian Fedoruk, 30, online in 2011. “I’m 42, I’ve been divorced three times, and I want to meet a younger woman who wants kids. If I said that back here, people would think I’m nuts. So my reality forced me to expand my dating pool.”
Ryan and Fedoruk fell in love during his frequent trips to Russia over the next five years.
“People thought [auditioning] was even crazier than finding a spouse abroad,” says Ryan. “You’re already dealing with learning how to live together, and then you have a camera crew there, 24/7. But I knew that was what we were signing up for, and it was important. I want people to see the ups and the downs, but to see that this is an option, that you don’t need to be limited by geography to find love.”
Still, language and culture barriers have made navigating their new life difficult in his Williamstown, Ky., home.
“The biggest thing has been emotions,” says Ryan. “I’m a guy who shows my feelings. Alla keeps things to herself. So when she sees me getting upset or crying, she’ll think that I’m not a real man.”
Cast member Chantel, 25, who declined to give her last name for privacy reasons, had no problems coping with the distance when she began dating her Dominican Republic-based fiancé, Pedro, in 2015 after meeting on Facebook. But her friends and family have been critical of their romance, so she brought Pedro to Atlanta to prove their relationship was the real deal.
“My friends were all like, ‘He could have a girlfriend in the Dominican Republic and be playing you!’ I was like, ‘Your boyfriend could live down the street and have another girl on the side.’ You never truly know,” says Chantel.
While none of the couples can reveal their fate on the show, one from a previous season is still together and set to star in TLC’s spinoff series “90 Day Fiancé: Happily Ever After” (Sunday at 10 p.m.).
“There’s so many misconceptions when you see a relationship like ours,” says Melanie Walters, 34, who met her 29-year-old hubby, Devar, on a girls’ trip to Jamaica.
Like Chantel, Melanie’s family — especially sister Bev — initially thought the match was a terrible idea.
“They assume someone is in it for the green card,” says Melanie. “Being on the show was a way to show naysayers that love like this can work.”