Is Marriage or Mortgage a Reality Show About Crime Girlfriends or What?!

I will be the first to admit that during my time in quarantine, I’ve watched some tremendously terrible reality television. I have fully insulted my own intelligence in order to mindlessly consume trash, and I’ve loved every minute of it. In the wake of a nasty pre-pandemic breakup that took me an embarrassingly long time to process, I gobbled up several dark and horrifying seasons of Bachelor in Paradise. As I lamented the loss of my live music job and the camaraderie I shared with the bar staff, I watched all eight seasons of Vanderpump Rules in about a month. While I sat alone in my apartment, too afraid to go on responsibly distanced park walks with friends, staring blankly into space and losing all sense of time, I willingly subjected myself to every excruciating minute of Too Hot to Handle, Selling Sunset and Bling Empire. At one point, I even started rewatching old seasons of America’s Next Top Model, hoping that the familiar emotional abuse Tyra Banks inflicted upon these girls would feel predictable, even comforting. Reality TV has been a security blanket for me during a terrifying and isolating time, and while it’s certainly made me dumber I will still be forever grateful.

And yet, the sudden appearance of Marriage or Mortgage, a new show on Netflix, has given me pause. The premise is simple (?) — couples are introduced to Nichole and Sarah, a real estate agent and a wedding planner respectively, and the couples must choose between purchasing their dream house or having their dream wedding in Nashville.

We are meant to believe that we exist in a world where Nichole and Sarah share a home office(?!) and gently compete over the financial futures of these very nice couples with modest savings and dreams in their hearts. This is not a business model that makes any sense to me! Nichole and Sarah take the couples on three appointments each, to visit potential houses, wedding venues and vendors. Throughout the show, they pull out all the stops to try to lure the couples in one direction or another, usually by way of deep discounts and/or blatant emotional manipulation. For example, during her efforts to convince various couples to choose the house over the fantasy wedding, Nichole custom-stages a bedroom for a potential adopted child, frames one woman’s dead father’s recipes in the kitchen and has another woman’s dead grandfather’s wisest sayings carved into a rock which she strategically places on a plot of land she hopes to convince her to buy. It’s very fucked up and sometimes it even works! They are also clearly constantly trying to slyly top one another.

Marriage or Mortgage lesbian couples meet with this straight(?) couple(??)

These women are gay.

Nichole and Sarah spend so much time gently ribbing each other about the competition in such a snide-yet-affectionate way that I am not convinced that these two are not crime girlfriends somehow pulling an I Care A Lot. The vibes are strong. I’d also wager that the angry sex that takes place between Nichole and Sarah in their home office after a starry-eyed couple inevitably chooses one or the other is INCREDIBLE.

Considering the year we’ve had and how unmoored we all feel by pandemic fears and financial strain, doesn’t it seem obvious that everyone should choose the security of home ownership over a big party with a lot of people breathing on each other for a few hours? Even in a pre-pandemic world, wouldn’t you rather invest in your own future rather than be known in your group of friends as the couple who gave everyone the really nice commemorative soaps at their wedding? My friend, you would be wrong. If there’s one thing I’ve learned from my terrifying foray into Bachelor Nation, it’s that straight people are obsessed with weddings and begin planning their engagements before even meeting their prospective mates. I don’t want to spoil this show for you, but I had particularly strong feelings for a woman whose number one priority (should she choose the wedding) was a ranch fountain. I respect it! I just don’t understand it.

Of course, this madness is not unique only to straight couples. Of the ten episodes available in the first season, two focus on lesbian couples. Two! Cindy and Karla are an older couple who are currently living in the house Karla once shared with her ex wife. Cindy is a pastor at a LGBTQ church, and they met when Cindy performed Karla’s first wedding(!). Cindy consoled Karla through the dissolution of the marriage after Karla’s then-wife cheated on her. Cindy is looking forward to having a wedding of her own, but they’re also looking for a home with fewer ghosts from past relationships. They also proudly announce that they are looking for a turn-key home that won’t require many renovations, as neither of them inherited “that” lesbian gene. They are… the cutest people I’ve ever seen.

The second couple are Whitney and Alex, a pair of adorable nurses who work together and spend every second of every day together, and push their cat Georgie around in a pink specialty cat carriage. Both couples are amazing, and both of them are great representation for queer women who just want to sit in the bath or on the porch and not deal with anybody else’s shit. I wish all four of them a lifetime of happiness.

As this show was shot in a just barely pre-Covid world, the pandemic definitely affected some of the weddings. With that in mind, I couldn’t help but wonder if this new development caused any of the couples to regret their decision. I would love a follow-up show where the Team House couples have small City Hall or Zoom weddings (a la Heather Hogan) before splitting a bottle of wine in the gorgeous marble kitchens of the charming homes they own, while the Team Wedding couples angrily squash cockroaches in their overpriced rental apartments and rue the day. Am I projecting? Maybe!

What is this show??? What are we doing here?? Why are we presented with this depressing world where we are forced to choose between celebrating our love and having a place to live??? Why is this happening??? Are straight people okay???? Is ANYONE okay?!?!?

But once again, just to be clear:

I’M JUST SAYING

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Stef

Stef Schwartz is a founding member and the self-appointed Vapid Fluff Editor at Autostraddle.com. She currently resides in New York City, where she spends her days writing songs nobody will ever hear and her nights telling much more successful musicians what to do. Follow her on twitter and/or instagram.

Stef has written 464 articles for us.

16 Comments

  1. I have not (yet) watched this show but I just read this entire article out loud to my wife and laughed the whole time. Cindy and Karla having met when Cindy officiated Karla’s first wedding, then Cindy consoling Karla her through her break up before they eventually ended up together is possibly the most lesbian thing I have ever heard in my life.

  2. A ranch fountain!

    A pink specialty cat carriage!

    These are like the two ends of the “how to be extra in any sexuality” spectrum.

  3. Okay but the first wedding venue they show the older lesbian couple is LITERALLY A SLAVE PLANTATION and a Civil War Hospital for Confederate soldiers. Gay weddings: they can be racist too!!!

    For real though they showed the place on screen and I was like “there’s no way that wasn’t built by slaves” and then Pastor Lesbian was like “there’s great energy here.” Look into your heart Pastor Lesbian! You know that isn’t true!!

  4. “They are also clearly constantly trying to slyly top one another.”

    Business wise or….?

      • suppose one doesn’t, like, know what you mean… say you were on a panel and the question came up. how would you explain it to Brie?

    • I read this on the main page and somehow thought you were talking about Sarah and Nicole and how they worked during the AS fundraiser. I was like, Oh damn—that’s how they were able to raise so much 💰.

  5. Thank you, Stef! I’ve also watched most of the other shows you’ve mentioned and they’ve been both comforting and horrifying.

    I was really excited that there were two lesbian couples on this show, although I would have loved the couples to be more diverse! Sarah and Nichole were definitely manipulative but ultimately sweet, although I couldn’t fully understand their motives most of the time. I’m most puzzled by the straight couple who was “waiting until marriage” and SPOILER ALERT buys a house and yet the female fiancée still spends the night at a friend’s house to avoid temptation. Straight people are so confusing!!!

    • More puzzling than the young couple still living separately with their parents choosing the wedding over a house where they could finally live together in?!? I couldn’t believe their choice, so counterintuitive!

  6. I am very confused. The couples are paying for either a house or an over the top wedding? If it wasn’t overly expensive, then they could have both. Why would anyone choose a one day event instead of a house?

  7. loved this show (and have also over indulged in reality tv during the pandemic, truly a MOOD).

    I consider myself a romantic, but I would definitely choose mortgage over wedding! Glad to see I’m not the only one in these comments feeling the same way.

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