“For most Americans their wedding is the most important day of their lives.” So sayeth Caroline Rhea and so beginneth the show!

And here beginneth the recap! Would you like to know more?

The bloke in the first couple wants to look “damn good” for his woman for his wedding. He doesn’t want his cummerbund to slip down his belly!
His woman wants to be the little princess coming down the aisle for him. Awwww!
From Hawaii Nick and Lael? I’ve no idea which is which.

From California Bruce and Kimmi. They’ve only recently become engaged and now they’re, apparently, making a new commitment to be thin for each other for their wedding.
Kim’s breaking out the waterworks nice and early. She bought her dress already and now she’s too chubby to fit into it. That’s why you don’t buy it so far out from the wedding numbnuts!

Lael is now the heaviest she’s ever been and she wants to be able to go down the aisle and have everyone go “Awwww, she looks beautiful in her white dress!”

As always they get training and help from The Biggest Loser including uber trainers Bob and Jillian, hooray!

Caroline says that since they’re about to start a new future together they’ve got to kiss their past goodbye – big piles of junk food on tables behind them.
Kimmi says that with the way her and Bruce have been eating lately they probably would’ve gotten through all the food on the tables – and it’s quite a hefty pile – in about a week. Hamburgers, chips, mounds of chocolate and numerous chinese food dishes are on their table.

Lael has a big sweet tooth, but her favourite is fried eggs on hamburger on white rice with brown gravy. Which is apparently delicious, nomnomnom. Or so Lael says.

But it’s time now to say goodbye to all that evil food and time to weigh-in!

Lael says this is the last time she’s going to feel bad about being in a sports bra and shorts. She’s going to lose the weight!

Oh and yes, they still have the big bass drum pounding away as they walk into the weigh-in room.

After the weigh-in they’re having 12 days at the ranch before having another weigh-in, then heading home for several months before meeting again for a final weigh-in. The winning team gets a $50,000 dream wedding, oooh!

Lael – 164lbs – 74.55kg
(She’s very, very short.)

Nick – 251lbs – 114.09kg
Nick used to be a triathlete and ate a lot back then but then he stopped competing in triathlons but didn’t stop eating as much.

Kimmi says that finding out Nick used to be a triathlete just meant her and her man would have to step it up a bit. They’re not going to give up just because he used to be a triathlete!

Total: 415lbs – 219.09kg

Other couple has their turn now.
Bruce – 267lbs – 121.36kg
Bruce has a lot of hillbilly type tatts. Niiiice. He realised he needs to lose the weight because his Dad died due to his weight problems.

Kimmi – 215lbs – 97.73kg
The heaviest she’d ever been was 170lbs so she wasn’t sure how she’d gotten so big. Caroline asks her if she’s picked out a dress yet and Kimmi says she’s already bought it and doesn’t fit.

Total: 482lbs – 188.64kg

(Early prediction: Bruce & Kimmi ftw!)

Whichever couple wins the weigh-in after 12 days at the ranch will win… A honeymoon! Cool!
Kimmi’s very perky saying she’ll be thinking any time she’s thinking about it being too hard she’ll remember that she’s got a wedding and a honeymoon coming up!

Lael and Nick have their “ideal outfits” in their room for inspiration. Their wedding outfits, of course! Ditto with Bruce and Kimmi.

11 days until weigh-in and Bob and Jillian arrive, hooray! Racing across a paddock like a couple of kids, as usual.
Partway across Jillian stops as she can see her two (Bruce and Kimmi) lounging around under a pergola. So she screams out to them to come over to her. Kimmi says she looked over at Bruce and went “Uh-ohhhh!”

Jillian takes her peeps off into the gym and she says they were both pretty gung-ho. Jillian says she thinks they’re in for a bit of a rude awakening!
Kimmi has an aside saying that she was fairly confident at first but that was a big mistake!
It’s not long into the training session and Kimmi’s just walking along at a decent clip on the treadmill and begging Jillian to be allowed to put her hands on the rails because she feels like she’s going to fall off. And Jillian is, as always, very firm and says NO! NO! Hooray!
“You gonna fall off? That’s a shame. Keep walking. If I was you I’d really try not to fall off! Welcome. To HELL.” – Jillian
Jillian says her style is very aggressive and she doesn’t make any bones about it. Her job is to show them how much they’re capable of. They’re harder she pushes the better someone will feel about themselves.
Jillian says to Kimmi that she has to do it and Kimmi says in an aside that while she was crying it was more because she realised that this is what she’s going to have to do.

Bob has Lael and Nick working out on the lawn but then takes them off for “a bit of a walk”. Which with Bob is never going to be a short walk!
Lael apparently has a huge cholesterol problem, Bob says. She really needs to get control of it.
Bob points back down the hill when they get to the top and tells them to look how far they’ve come already.
Lael’s legs are killing her on the way down and she’s quite a ways behind both up and down the hill.

6 days until weigh-in!

Kimmi’s still bothering to moisturise in the mornings it seems.
Bruce and Kimmi are both doing it really hard with Jillian. They’ve given the gym the nickname “Jillian’s House of Pain”. You walk in in pain and you walk out in even greater pain.
He’s doing it really hard on the elliptical and Jillian is standing beside him cajoling all the while. Jillian says he’s completely out of shape and he’s sick and dizzy and she’s never seen anyone turn that shade of green before!
Jillian asks him what he’s doing it for and he says for his fiance, his Dad, etc. So Jillian asks him if it’s worth it but he’s not sure if he’s got a minute in him. Jillian says he does!

Bob loves working couples out because the couple spends so much time together and working out together keeps them both motivated as well as tightening the bond between them.
Nick gives Lael a lot of encouragement during workout. He says the intensity of the workouts Bob has been giving them would rate about an 11 out of 10. But it’s worth it because they want to be the ones to win the honeymoon!

And now it’s challenge day, hooray! They head out to the rose garden where Caroline is awaiting them. She says that since they’re competing to win an enormous wedding, they’re going to need an enormous cake! So today’s challenge is to… build a cake?
Each team has six layers spread throughout the garden. First team to bring all six layers together to the table wins!
Prize? For the first month back home they will have all their meals cooked for them and delivered to their doors every day. Nice, healthful, nourishing meals, presumably.

Ahh but there’s a catch. Once you get married, the wives will be in charge. So the only way to win the game is to listen to what the wife says. The menfolk are to be blindfolded during the challenge and will be directed by the womenfolk!
Bruce says he and Kimmi together are a strong team. Lael and Nick are relying on steady progress because they can win in a sprint at the end!

Messy, messy challenge! They seem to be real cakes with real icing and real weight to each of the layers and they have to carry the cake and slowly stack up the progressively smaller layers each upon the other.
Blue team takes the lead for quite a while at the start and manages to maintain the lead throughout the race, ultimately winning fairly easily. Bob’s going to be so pleased!

Both teams are an absolute mess, icing all over themselves. Hope it tastes nice!

Day 12 weigh-in time.

Just a reminder:
Lael – 164lbs – 74.55kg
Nick – 251lbs – 114.09kg
Total: 482lbs – 188.64kg

Bruce – 267lbs – 121.36kg
Kimmi – 215lbs – 97.73kg
Total: 415lbs – 219.09kg

Second Weigh-in:
Lael – 147lbs – Loss: 17lbs (7.73kg)
Nick – 224lbs – Loss: 27lbs (12.17kg)
Total: 371lbs – Loss: 44lbs (20kg) – 10.6%

To win Bruce and Kimmi will need to have lost 51lbs. Bruce is a bit doubtful…
Bruce – 244lbs – Loss: 23lbs (10.45kg)
Kimmi needs to have lost more than 28lbs…
Kimmi – 201lbs – Loss: 14lbs (6.37kg)
“I’m crying because I lost weight not because we lost!” Kimmi says that it was a bit silly to be disappointed because they’d lost a goodly amount of weight, even though they didn’t win the honeymoon.
Total: 445lbs – Loss: 37lbs (16.82kg) – 7.68%

Lael and Nick are very motivated now having won the food and the honeymoon.
But now it’s time to go home and start trying to do it all by themselves, no trainers, no gyms, etc.

Caroline wishes them all the best of luck!

Kimmi’s looking forward to a long life with Bruce. She thought she needed an outside influence to do it but now she knows she’s had it in her the whole time.
Nick says he and his woman are doing it for the right reasons so it’s all worth it. Lael says the game is just beginning now. They’re both going to work really hard when they get back to Hawaii!
Bruce says they’ve lost the battle but they’ve not lost the war!

One week on and Bruce is still striving to get that “Jillian Soreness” into him each time he trains because he knows that that’s what’s going to get him to where he needs to be. Kimmi says she’s an emotional eater, she eats for comfort and she loves eating things that she thinks will help her feel better. But actually doing that makes her feel worse because she feels lethargic and heavy.

Lael’s bought her and her man a set of scales so they can keep track of their weights. But so far they’re not getting great results, mostly maintaining their weight or losing a pound or two here and there.
Nick says that winning the prizes isn’t going to make them slack off at all, it’s going to make them more driven to stay ahead of the game.

Kimmi has a look at her wedding dress every now and then for motivation and to see how much closer she is to getting into it every now and then. But she’s not quite ready to try it on again yet…

Nick and Lael train for a triathlon as part of their workout. Nick’s done them before of course, but Lael never has. She’s struggling a little with the fancy foot pedals that you click your shoes into while riding, but Nick says he’s going to support her all the way and they’re going to cross the finish line together, awww!
They’re practicing at a park first so Lael can get used to the bike, because she’s used to road bikes with proper pedals and thicker wheels.
But they’re becoming a better team by working together on this though, Lael says, and they’re finding they’re getting better at communicating with each other and so on.

9 weeks until the final weigh-in!

Kimmi’s looking quite a bit skinnier. Though she says that week has been a bit of a bummer for her since she only lost one pound. Bruce is looking quite a bit skinnier too!
Nick says his attitude before going to the ranch was that exercise was overrated and he didn’t have time to do it. Now it’s a necessity and he craves the exercise and it’s lowered his stress levels. Lael’s looking quite the cutie! One of her video diaries has her telling us that her and Nick are going to go do a mini-triathlon with their friends.

Back in California Bruce and Kimmi are off to look at wedding flowers. They’re both really excited to be doing it together because it’s one of the first things they’re doing to really begin the organisation.
They tell the florist that they want to kind of plot out two kinds of arrangements. One will be sort of budget concious, pretty, but maybe not so expensive. But if they win the competition, they want to go nuts.
So Florist lady says that she has something in the back they might be interested in and she says she’ll be right back with it. Bruce and Kimmi get to chatting about flowers and shortly the Florist returns from the back room carrying a gorgeous and huge floral pillar type arrangement which she plonks down and steps out from around to show it off.

Hang on a minute, that’s not Florist lady, that’s Jillian! Sneaky woman!
Kimmi stares at the bouquet for a minute and then looks at the “Florist” and realises who it is and her jaw hits the floor and she gasps and Jillian cracks up and rushes over to give them both a hug and check them out.
Jillian says that Kimmi is looking gorgeous, her arms are toned up, as is her chest and her waist is petite! Jillian says that Bruce was almost unrecognisable. He used to “lead” with his stomach but now the stomach is almost completely gone now.

But Jillian wasn’t satisfied with just surprising them at the florist, oh no. It’s time for an asskicking in the gym!
She sets Bruce up at 8 mile an hour on the treadmill and he’s jogging along and grinning at her and Jillian’s having none of them. She bumps it up to 10mph and tells him to try smiling at her now! He grits his teeth and keeps going and Jillian is stoked.
Jillian keeps upping the pace on him. She asks him if he remembers when he was on the elliptical and almost passing out way back in the day. She tells them both that they should be so proud of themselves. She says in an aside that she thought her team was probably out of it, but as she tells her duo – they’re going to CRUSH the Blue team!

800m swim, 26 mile bike ride, 6.2 mile run. That’s the triathlon Lael and Nick are going to do. Crikey!
Nick says that every day he’s seeing more strength and confidence in Lael and if they can finish this it’s going to help them so much.
As they’re preparing and waiting for things to get started, Bob shows up! It’s not even dawn and yet Bob’s up and out there to say hello. Yay Bob!
Bob’s sticking around to watch them compete. He says they both look great and he’s so proud of them because they’re at a point where they can do something like this.
Lael’s most worried about the bike ride section. There’s a “heart break hill” which Nick was worried about her making it up. But she makes it with plenty of encouragement from Nick.
Bob’s all excited to see them coming up the final part of the run and he runs alongside them for a bit cheering. They’re all really happy with the progress of the Blue team.

Kimmi says that working out has basically become an addiction for her as food used to be.
Lael says that a lot of people have noticed that she’s losing weight which is great!
Nick is really happy with the changes in their lives and know that there’s nothing they can’t accomplish now!

Kimmi is very tearyhappy about the changes in their lives too and she loves Bruce more than ever. Awwww!

4 months since they arrived at the ranch it’s time to weigh-in for the last time!

Nick and Lael come in first and the difference is astonishing. They’re both skinny! And toned and basically looking great.
Bruce and Kimmi come in next… After the magic dividing wall is put up so they can’t see each other immediately. Bruce looks buff! Kimmi’s still very pudgy around the thighs and bum but her upper body looks much better.

Once the divider comes down the girls both squeal and the guys grin at each other. Both sides say the others look great, etc.

Caroline asks Kimmi if she fits into her wedding dress and Kimmi says she actually fit into the dress about 20 pounds ago so ironically she may need to buy a new dress anyway!

Time to weigh-in! Let’s see if they can stretch it out as much as the Australian version.

But wait, time to wheel out the trainers! You’re such a liar Caroline! Both trainers give their teams big squishy hugs and wish them luck. And now, after a reminder about what the prize is, it’s time to weigh-in.

But before we begin let’s take another look at where they started. MY GOD! Weigh-in already!
They’re seriously replaying footage that they aired earlier in the episode…

Kimmi:
Start: 215lbs (97.73kg)
Current: 155lbs (70.45kg)
Loss: 60lbs (27.28kg)

Jillian cheers very loudly and grins at her as Kimmi squeals and cheers for herself as well.

Bruce:
Start: 267lbs (121.36kg)
Current: 173lbs (78.64kg)
Loss: 94lbs (42.72kg)

He’s stoked and Kimmi’s crying again. Blue team are both grinning and applauding as well.

Total: 154lbs – 70kg – 31.95%

In order to win Nick and Lael will need to have lost more than 132lbs. Seems doable.

Lael:
Start: 164lbs (74.55kg)
Current: 121lbs (55kg)
Loss: 43lbs (19.55kg)

Leaves more than 89lbs for Nick!

Nick:
Start: 251lbs (114.09kg)
Current: 183lbs (83.18kg)
Loss: 68lbs (30.91kg)

Not enough! The Red team supporters erupt with squeals and cheers!
Blue are gracious in defeat, congratulating the winners. Having won the honeymoon themselves probably helps the disappointment a little!

At the end of the show they have a clip from Bruce and Kimmi’s wedding back in January last year. Kimmi looks amazing and Bruce doesn’t look like a total bogan, hurrah!
Lael and Nick’s wedding was way back in October 2005 so this must be quite an old episode of the sho. Lael looks great, as does Nick.

And here endeth the show! Awwwwww!

But wait! Mr Voiceover Man says to tune in next week for another Biggest Loser Special. Hooray!

No details beyond that but I’d expect it to be the same timeslot as this week. So I expect I’ll be here recapping again next week if anyone cares to join the fun. :-)