Imagine being handed £14,000 with which to plan your wedding. There'd be no need for the happy couple to worry about savings or maxing-out on credit cards and dodgy loans which they'll still be paying off long after the divorce.

Yes, the couple are given this big fat wad of cash and told to create the wedding of their dreams, so what's the catch? The catch is that the dreams belong to the groom. The bride, if she takes the money, has to do the unthinkable and keep her lip buttoned about the wedding preparations, and allow the groom to go off for three weeks on a spending spree, planning every aspect of their wedding, and she'll know nothing about his plans until the 'big day'.

This programme got off to a promising start, showing clips of their past brides, when the programme was on BBC3, and it gleefully reminded me of the 'Big Fat Gypsy Wedding' franchise on Channel 4, with stroppy, demanding women sobbing, pouting and squealing, weighed down by the weight of their fake lashes and outlandish dresses. I was delighted. It's always a pleasure to see tacky women who insist they're 'princesses' brought down to earth.

But we're not on BBC3 anymore. The show, given BBC3's coming demise, has been transferred to BBC1, and so the screeching, the ridicule and the bling had to be toned down. We were left with a far more decorous, sensible show, and it was rather disappointing for it.

The couple featured in this episode, Jenni and Andrew, initially seemed to fit into the 'bling' stereotype, saying they used to go clubbing, and referring to their daughter as a 'little princess' and giggling and gooing at one another. But then it all changed: Andrew stopped laughing and bent to unfold a wheelchair.

Pregnancy damaged Jenni's pelvis terribly, and now she is in constant pain, walks with crutches, and rarely leaves the house. The girl who was once clubbing every night, laughing and in love, admitted: 'I came out of that pregnancy with my wings clipped'. Jenni had been worn down into a different person by her disability, but was pinning hopes of rejuvenation on her wedding. 'I'm disappearing into my lovely, romantic Wonderland,' she says, imagining her wedding, wanting a vintage-themed ceremony, something refined and soft, which would make her the beautiful centre of attention, and maybe restore her confidence.

But Jenni wasn't allowed to plan the wedding. It was all left in the hands of the groom. 'I trust you!' cried romantic Jenni as Andrew packed and left, 14 grand richer, for a night of clubbing with his pals.

As Jenni kept mentioning words like 'olde-worlde', 'dream', 'romance', 'escape', Andrew was running around with a thumping hangover, thinking of an Ibiza-themed wedding with 'a red carpet and fire people'. For the ceremony he chose a dingy registry office and then a scrubby field behind a pub for the reception, where the blushing bride would have to walk past a sign saying 'Fish and chips, 7.95' and be careful to dodge the Nissan Micra dumped in the grass. Mercifully, she'd be shielded from the elements, and the chippy and petrol smells, by a red and yellow circus tent which was speckled with flies and grime.

He kept insisting she'd love the Ibiza party theme, as that was where they met, but what if they'd met in a Tesco in Doncaster? What then?

On the day of the wedding, Jenni's car pulled up at the glum registry office and she started to weep. 'This is where I come to pay the council tax for God's sake!' She had to be coaxed out of the car and, in turn, had to coax people to take her picture because the daft groom forgot to hire a photographer. It seems most of his budget went on neon lights, sand and cocktails for his 'Ibiza' reception.

This show seems to have become quite anaemic since moving from BBC3. Lots of guts and glamour have been snipped out and replaced by sad, personal stories and lots of padding, such as the bride and her mum pottering around in a shop trying on hats and expressing nice bland sentiments like 'It's lovely to see her smiling for a change'.

Well, yes, it is nice to see people smiling, but it hardly makes for the gory, tearful drama and tantrums this show used to dish up. Bring back the bling and the brats!