For Richer or Poorer

TV Producer John Nelson, 36, has received more than 70,000 letters from lovers young & old. They write him about their romances in the hope that Nelson and his partners, John Reddy and John Masterson, will select them to be married on Bride & Groom (weekdays, 10:30 a.m., CBS-TV) before an estimated TV audience of more than 2,000,000 enraptured housewives.

Fearful that his show may be taken over by exhibitionists, Nelson makes every effort to select the soundest applicants from his flood of mail. During the six years that the show has been on radio & TV, the grooms have included an executive of Douglas Aircraft Co., a Phi Beta Kappa from Western Reserve, an atomic scientist and Nelson's own brother-in-law. This week one of the grooms was Jacklyn Lucas, 24, who as a 17-year-old Marine corporal on Iwo Jima was the youngest man ever to win the Medal of Honor.

Boy Meets Girl. What brings lovers in such droves to Bride & Groom is its promise to feather their nests. The newlyweds get a free, week-long honeymoon ("We pay for everything except liquor," says Nelson), the loan of a Pontiac, and a shower of presents ranging from vacuum cleaners and gas ranges to silverware and cigarette lighters. The ceremony itself is whipped through in something under four minutes. The rest of the 15-minute program is devoted to music by an organ, a harp and a sentimental baritone, a quick rehash of the boy-meets-girl details of the particular romance, and to some intensive selling of the products of Sponsor General Mills (Bisquick, Crustquick, Party cake,

Gold Medal Flour). The television weddings have so far been performed only by rabbis and Protestant clergymen. Nelson has not figured out a way to present Roman Catholic marriages on TV, since they must take place in a church.

Because they are dealing with lovers, Bride & Groom's producers have run into some unexpected situations. One couple astonished the landlord of their honeymoon hotel by playing billiards until 3 a.m. on their wedding night. One groom offered to enliven the ceremony by performing sleight-of-hand tricks on the air. At least six couples have broken their engagements before they could be got in front of the TV cameras. One groom decamped the night before the show, leaving a desolate bride-to-be. The producers were hard put to find another marriageable couple on such short notice. Since that debacle, Bride & Groom has been careful to keep at least three couples on hand in Manhattan on each specified day.

Girl Gets Boy. The brides have ranged in age from 17 to 75, the grooms from 19 to 78. Divorced people are frowned on, since, as Nelson explains: "There are always plenty of people getting married for the first time." Nelson has had 17 policemen married on his show (he got one speeding ticket fixed as a result), and four children have been named after him. He constantly hears from Bride & Groom graduates who want him to patch up a quarrel, find them a job or lend them some money. He is heartened by a recent survey of 1,100 Bride & Groom couples which shows that only twelve have been separated or divorced since the program began, that the majority claim to have no pressing problems, and that nearly 400 children have been born or are on the way.

After six years of almost daily attendance at weddings, and after listening to countless love stories, Nelson, father of three, resolutely denies any personal cynicism. He has concluded, however, that the female is more deadly than the male--at least 90% of the marriages, he figures, have been instigated by the woman.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.