By Assunta Ng
Catherine Giudici and Sean Lowe
How would you like to announce your wedding on television for free, and even get a sponsor to pay for a lavish wedding?
ABC’s “The Bachelor” star Sean Lowe and Seattleite Catherine Giudici did just that on Sunday, Jan. 19.
Their wedding will be held on Jan. 26 at the Four Seasons Resort The Biltmore in Santa Barbara, facing the Pacific Ocean. ABC is paying for the whole wedding, including the engagement and wedding rings, designer dresses for the bride and 12 bridesmaids, and a reception for hundreds of guests. It will be a family reunion for the couple’s families. Giudici’s father Carey will attend the wedding to escort his daughter down the aisle. Giudici’s parents are divorced.
The couple has visited Giudici’s family in Seattle. Their engagement party was held last October, at Ballard’s Annex Oyster Restaurant.
Lowe and Giudici have been living in Dallas, apart from one another. A businessman from Texas, Lowe has told the media that he is committed to remaining a virgin until the wedding. The couple has not decided where they will settle after they wed.
The dress
ABC even found Giudici a fashion designer — one most prominently known for bridal wear — to design a wedding gown she likes. Based in Los Angeles, designer Monique Lhuillier is half Filipino, like Giudici.
ABC also provides a wedding planner to make all the arrangements and print all the wedding invitations.
In exchange for paying all the expenses of the wedding, ABC keeps a tight ship on the event for exclusive coverage of the two-hour Sunday show. The Giudici family is not allowed to talk to the media.
How it began
In Sept. 2013, at the urging of her friends, graphic designer Catherine Giudici threw her hat in The Bachelor contest as a way of experiencing new adventures. She never thought she would be chosen and never dreamed that she would be falling in love. But she did.
The rest is history. (end)