She may have been the victim to what she calls the โworldโs worst stitch upโ in the Married At First Sightโs franchise but despite her disastrous pairing with on-screen husband Nasser Sultan, Gabrielle Bartlett is still a hopeless romantic at heart.
In fact, the 47-year-old is such a firm believer in love sheโs decided to pursue a surprising new career path as a marriage celebrant.
โIโm so excited. Iโve got a full heart at the very thought of it,โ the season five MAFS bride, who is also a trained actor and has previously worked in marketing, tells Now To Love in an exclusive interview.
โThereโs nothing like being able to step inside a coupleโs love bubble and help them create a milestone wedding that is personalised. That creative process is really exciting,โ she adds of her new business, which is called Your Love Story By Gabrielle.
While she describes her time on MAFS as โtraumaticโ, one of the silver linings was hitting it off with her marriage celebrant Glen.
โFollowing MAFS, I became really good mates with the celebrant who married Nasser and I, which is so strange. He inspired me to do the course and begin my celebrant career. So I actually have MAFS to thank for something,โ the Sydney-based local tells us of the serendipitous meeting.
โIโm finally open for business and I canโt wait to chat to people,โ Gab exclaims, before adding she is also available to do baby naming ceremonies and vowel renewals.
Being around happy couples is a dream come true for the single mother, who admits sheโs still hoping to meet The One.
โIโve always had an unwavering faith in love. Even though I donโt have anyone special in my life right now, I know heโs out there somewhere and I believe in the right time, right place,โ she tells us.
In 2018, her faith in love was put through the ultimate test when she was matched with personal trainer Nasser Sultan on the season five series of MAFS.
Despite initially hitting it off, the pair struggled to find an intimate spark before Nasser โfriend-zonedโ Gab. It was also revealed Nasser had a secret girlfriend during the entire filming of she show.
Reflecting on the โobvious stitch upโ of her match, Gab says: โGod knows we never would have worked out. Just to know you were set up from the beginning after investing so much was so disappointing.โ
โDespite all of the thousands of questions and soul-searching I was asked to do about the type of person I wanted to meet, I now know that was completely pointless. It was the opposite of those qualities that I was matched with,โ she claims of the showโs apparent matching-making skills.
โIt was tough being given that reassurance that you were going to be professionally matched with someone compatible to you, to learn that was all out the window. Then it was about learning to navigate your way out of what was a pretty traumatic experience.โ
As for what Gab thinks of Nasser since his disastrous appearance on the MAFS Grand Reunion event, where he was finally called out by his fellow co-stars for his constant trolling of them?
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โItโs pretty hard to have a positive opinion about someone who was quite openly disingenuous about being on the show in the first place. He had a girlfriend at the timeโฆ I donโt want to see him say such cruel and nasty things about people for no reason, other than him thinking it would be funny. I think itโs quite telling of his character.
โIt was good to see a more transparent account of exactly how Nasser is. He could have redeemed himself so very easily but I donโt think he has the capacity to understand how that would have served him,โ the reality star says of his refusal to apologise to his cast mates.
Gab believes she wasnโt invited back to the All Stars reunion special because of her reluctance to โkick off with arguments or heavy opinions.โ
As for her advice to the incoming cast of MAFS season eight, which premieres on February 22nd, the marriage celebrant laughs: โI would say that it is yet another season of Jerry Springer, so if youโre a fan of Jerry Springer, youโre going to love it.โ
Before cautioning: โMy advice would be to stay grounded, if you do go through trauma as a result, Iโm pretty sure most people do, try and find some charities that are close to your heart and use that temporary platform to help some causes close to your heart. Itโs healing and itโs helping at the same time.โ
Reflecting on her time on the show, the 47-year-old admits it took months to transition back to her normal life.
โI think people maybe had the assumption that I snapped back into my normal life and rolled on as usual. I didnโt! I had a process that I went through to transition back to life as normal. I invested time, effort and also money to be there.โ