Bridal Bootcamp Cast Blogs – Blue Team – Episode 2

While filming Bridal Bootcamp, each of its brides-to-be (as well as their trainers) kept journals of their experience that we’ll share every week here on this blog. The behind-the-scenes insight continues below with the Blue Team’s members weighing in on this week’s episode. The claws are out in some of these accounts — not just for their hard-ass trainer, Steve, but also for each other. The girls seem to be realizing that you don’t go on reality TV to make friends…

Amberly

They say what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, and this week has taught me that this statement couldn’t be more true. I knew going into this that I wasn’t the most patient person, but thought this would be a good opportunity to grow in that respect. Apparently, I should have worked on that virtue before coming to Bridal Bootcamp.

This week started off great. I lost the most weight on our team and we won the second Marital Mission. We started at a disadvantage with only four against five but we still pulled it off. The prizes were great but the best reward ever was not having to go to the Fitting Room. We were able to keep our team in tact one more week. Getting to go to the Bridal Break Room was awesome as well. I got to talk to my mom. It was so great to hear her voice. Gosh, I miss my family and friends so much.

Elimination night was frustrating for Blue as well as Green. We may have not been losing a teammate but some of us were feeling like they wanted to go. Steve is a great trainer but he can make certain people feel small sometimes. Tara was explaining to the rest of the Blue Bridal Party how frustrated she was with Steve’s methods and expressed her desire to “possibly” leave Bridal Bootcamp. We tried to console her as best we could and thought that we would move on from the talk with a positive outlook for the week to come. Little did we know that Melissa was listening in on our conversation. She took Tara’s statements out of context and immediately ran out to the Green Bridal Party to exclaim how unappreciative our team was. While I feel her feelings are justifiable, I can’t stand people that stick their noses where they don’t belong. I was PISSED!!!! How dare she listen in on our conversation. How dare she tell information that wasn’t hers to tell. Tara certainly didn’t want the rest of the world to know she was having second thoughts, especially when these thoughts were merely therapeutic statements. I kind of went off the deep in and told Melissa exactly what I thought of her. I was hoping it would be her to be eliminated but I wasn’t so lucky. Oh well. Melissa provides me with the opportunity to help me grow as a person. She will certainly stab one of us the back again and this time I won’t let it get to me. In the words of Justin Timberlake, what goes around comes around, and win or lose, Melissa will get hers in the end. At least I can admit that I was wrong to react the way I did and learn from my mistake.

Tara worked through her issues with Steve and all was well for a little while. Then, Tara got a call from her Mom. Her grandmother was in the hospital as a result of her eighth heart attack. Thankfully, she was able to fly home for a couple days to be with her family in their time of need. And, while I am happy Tara is at home with her family, I can’t help but wonder where this will leave us for the next Marital Mission. Will Tara’s inability to train with us affect the upcoming mission? Will it send us to the Fitting Room?

Training with Steve has been intense and more frequent than I am used to. As a result, I have developed tendinitis in both knees. My left knee hurts even with basic walking to the canteen and back. The pain has forced me to cut back the intensity of my workouts. While the rest of my body feels great, I wonder if it will be enough this upcoming week at weigh-in. I can only hope that the weigh-in takes place on the dock and not the fitting room. Otherwise, I may be going home this week. So don’t forget to cheer on the Blue Bridal Party next week. We’ve worked so hard to get this far. I pray we can make it one more week. Talk to you all soon. I miss you soooo much, Ed.

Jamie

WOW! What an adventure. We won the Marital Mission this week! What an amazing feeling. We had to retrieve wedding registry gifts from a swimming pool and place them into our team’s box the quickest. We were down a person, so Tara and I had to go into the pool a third time while the Green Bridal Party only had to retrieve 2 gifts each. I felt like everything was happening in slow motion. This was no Baywatch moment — there were flabby thighs jiggling all over the place. I was the last person in the pool going after the last blue present in the pool. I swam my heart out. I knew that my team was counting on me. Dropping the present in my team’s box felt so great. I wasn’t even concerned with the prize for winning. I was just so overjoyed by the fact that Bridal Party Blue would not be doomed for the Fitting Room once again. We screamed and jumped around like we had just climbed Mt. Everest. I think winning was exactly what Blue needed to get our minds back on track.

For as much hell as we have all been put through the last couple weeks, I have never once wanted to quit. I am here until the end. I feel stronger than ever. I want so badly to make my family and friends proud of me. I know that no matter what happens here at Bridal Bootcamp everyone at home is rooting for me to succeed. My Daniel has so much faith in my abilities that it forces me to see it his way also. When you have people who believe in you so whole-heartedly, it is impossible not to begin to feel confidence in yourself. I just want to send all my love to my family and friends who have never stopped believing in me. Life has not been easy for Jamie Rae. This is the most out-of-the-box experience of my life. Bridal Bootcamp is an ass kicking like you can’t imagine…but at the same time, every breathless moment has been worth the amount of confidence and strength I have gained.

P.S. On a side note, I was the only person at Bootcamp this week who lost a big fat zero pounds. Holy crap, does that suck! Thank goodness I was weighing in on the dock and not in the Fitting Room. I don’t know why I wasn’t fazed by the fact that all of my hard work meant losing no weight. I just believe in myself enough to know that this week I will see better results. I am working my butt off a little harder this week. I am not ready to go home yet. My arms do not have the definition that they need for my dream strapless gown! :) Bring on the scale baby!! BRING IT!!

P.S.S. On another side note, dammit, Daniel you better not be partying while I am working my ass off. You better be at the gym working on your fitness!! I had the opportunity to earn my team an advantage in our Marital Mission and my Baby Boy (Dan) answered the question wrong!! Can you believe it?? I forgive you Danny Baby! I know that you and your hockey buddies like to do some partying. Just don’t expect to keep that s*** up when I get home. Baby, get ready for some cuddle time!!

Tara

It’s been a tumultuous week! Clearly we have some issues with Steve. Steve essentially told me that my attitude stinks, MY ATTITUDE…I mean seriously? The most positive person here? Then Steve started spouting off about being a good wife and such and we all just about lost it. Amberly called him out, Tesha started yelling and Steve storms out. I mean WHO DOES THAT? Who says it’s not OK to quit and then quits us? There’s the pot calling the kettle black. Our whole team has basically had it with Steve and his BS! He acts like he is so great and we suck…and we do suck, THAT’S WHY WERE HERE! We didn’t come here as athletes. We need help and being mean and stuff isn’t a very productive way to get the “best” from people.

I define a leader as someone who helps you be the best you, you can be. Who guides and molds you along the way, setting the pace and the standard. Steve is no leader.

So after Steve stormed out, we continued our workout in silence. That is until Amberly, who really infuriated me, started yelling at me that she was sick of hearing how I didn’t feel well.

Now, you’re probably going to be sick of hearing it, too. I AM SICK OF SAYING IT! However, I cannot help the fact that I am having serious cramping all the time. I don’t want to hurt, but I do. What makes me more mad is how much Amberly complains. She complains all the time. She doesn’t want to be there. She doesn’t want to look like a bitch. She is sick and tired. BLAH BLAH BLAH. So essentially I have had enough. My trainer really lays it hard on me for some reason. He labels all of us, and I get stuck with the, “Well, Tara” label. I mean what does that even mean? I am a leader, I am a strategist, I am a lot of things. I just don’t do well being put down all the time. I am hard enough on myself! Amberly really pissed me off, though. She has no room to talk when she acts like she does behind closed doors. I mean was it really necessary to say that, right then? Oh well, I am sure we’ll make up. We’re all under a lot of stress!

Steve did make an attempt at an apology by sending us a letter, under our door. To me, that was kind of a cop out. You don’t send a note when you’ve messed up! Hello, we we’re sitting right on the other side of the door. Why not come in and apologize, face to face? He certainly had no problem yelling at us to our face! Be a man and apologize the same way. Here I thought something COOL was coming under our door. HA!

Let’s talk about the fun stuff: the Marital Mission freaking ROCKED!!!!!!!!! The objective was to get “bridal shower” gifts out of the pool and into our blue box. Jamie got the question wrong at the beginning, even though I told her the correct answer. I mean, she said he wrote on your home calendar “party time.” It doesn’t take a genius to figure out THAT IS WHAT THE ANSWER WAS! Oh well!

I was the first to go into the water, and because we were short a bride (Tina left last week) I had to go three times. My adrenaline was pumping. Before the challenge, as just another example of Steve’s dislike for me, he was going to have Jamie and Amberly go three times because they’re the “strong ones.” I was like, “Ummm…I can swim really well and hold my breath a really long time. Sooooooooo…Anyways….” The contest started and I raced against Kelley to start. I got in and got the carabineer unhooked and got my package to safety. I was like a mermaid. I swam so fast and pushed so hard. Everyone was cheering my name. It was AWESOME!!!!!!!!!! Blue WON!!!!!!!!!! Everyone named me MVP, and with all the BS at camp, it really felt good to have a win! We were safe from the Fitting Room and we got to go to the Bridal Break Room, at last!

Once in the Bridal Break Room, it was just AMAZING! I loved all the wedding magazines and the fabrics and swatches. I won’t lie, I also really loved being able to get online and feel “connected.” It’s really hard living without your “life.” To me, that’s my laptop, the Internet and my mobile phone. The thing I was most excited about was the phone call we’d get to make. Being that I am not a very outwardly emotional person, I was surprised when the phone was ringing as I called my mom that I began to cry! Yep, she wasn’t even on the other line yet before I started bawling like a baby! HAHAHAHAHA! It was like I hadn’t talked to her in months and months…and it had only been just a couple of weeks. She told me how David was and how much he missed me. She also told me that he’d come over to their house a lot and was spending a lot of time with my family. I thought that was just great, he’s such a good guy!

A little later on this week, I was pouring my heart out to my team because Steve is just so ANTI-TARA that it’s not funny! I was super emotional about it because I’ve lost the most weight, I work just as hard as everyone else, I keep my team motivated and he just tears me down. I don’t respond well to that kind of training. I was feeling really upset and in my crying and carrying on apparently Melissa from the green team was eavesdropping. We kept hearing the front door of the barracks slam so Jamie got up to investigate it. She saw Melissa running out and talking to her team. Literally before I could make sense of what was going on, Amberly and Jamie were running outside toward the lake screaming at the Green Team. It erupted into a huge fight ABOUT ME! They were pissed off because they were saying they were sending someone home tonight and here I was, carrying on about how upset I was and how I wanted to leave! It was pure chaos! I thought it was great that my team was backing me up, because what Melissa was telling them wasn’t exactly true. I was very upset and I was saying that if this is how my training was going to be for the whole six weeks, I didn’t want to stay because I can’t be cut down EVERY SINGLE DAY! My team totally agreed that Steve, for whatever reason is harder on me that on anyone else, and I was just so emotional and so agitated. I just wanted to be treated like everyone else was being treated!

Anyway, since Blue won the Marital Mission that meant Green had to send someone home. I was really sad to learn it was Kelly. Kelly and I bonded immediately, maybe because we both live in Nashville…or maybe because we’re both VERY COOL! It was very hard to say goodbye to her, but I was a little jealous. Going home meant seeing her Johnny and that made it all worth it, I am sure!

I know next week is going to just rock! Talk to you then!

Tesha

What can I say? Week 2 is over!!!! This journey at Bridal Bootcamp has taken a lot of prayer, tears and strength to get through. I think this is one of the hardest things that I have ever done in my life. Being away from my children, my fiancé and my family is probably the most difficult thing for me. My team won the second Marital Mission, which was a great feeling. Everyone thought that since I couldn’t swim and the mission took place in a pool that we were going to loose. Might I add that we had four members on our team and the Green Team had five people on their team. I prayed so much and tried my best along with all of my team members. It felt good weighing in on the dock instead of the Fitting Room. But even with that said, it was still some drama for our team. Although I want to go home every other day, the drama concerned my teammate Tara. Our trainer Steve does not give her a lot of encouragement and she had finally had it. I think Tara packed up to leave for the second or third time. Between the two of us, we pack so often I lose count. Anyway, while we were in our room talking to Tara about trying to talk to Steve about her feelings, Melissa from the Green Team heard Tara saying she wants to leave Bridal Bootcamp. She told her teammates and that started a big mess. This time I just kind of looked at everyone and said, “I’ve had enough.” I feel like I left my family, my church, my job for the constant drama every other day. LIVING WITH ALL WOMEN IN CLOSE QUARTERS IS HARD!!!!!! But guess what? I’m hanging in there. Everyday gets harder and harder instead of easier. Each day feels like five days and each hour feels likes 24 hours. On Friday I walked away from Steve and my team during a workout. I was just so tired of him thinking of different crazy drills like we are his puppets. I felt like I came here to loose weight and learn to exercise not to prove how I can look like a fool on TV. I had just got tired.

I began to pack and was ready to leave Bridal Bootcamp for the third time. I talked to my team and informed them that I am not at peace with the routines, Steve, or how I feel every other day. We had just carried him like he was a king on two pieces of 2×4. I had time to read my Bible and reflect on what I had done to my teammates. I decided to apologize and hang in here at least to the next Marital Mission. I am taking this day-by-day and hour-by-hour sometimes. Hopefully my weight loss in the end will be worth it. I’m not too worried about winning my dream wedding anymore because I have the dream man waiting on me at home.

On a lighter note, we were able to receive gifts to take home from winning the Marital Mission and also spend time in the Bridal Break Room. The room smelled of vanilla candles and was decorated with fluffy couches and a letter from Cynthia Conde stating that we could call a female family member or friend for five minutes (not our fiancés). I called my mother’s house where my children go after school. My daughter Moe anserwered the telephone, we screamed for about 10 seconds. It felt so good hearing her voice. Next, my 12-year-old son got on the phone, my mom, and my grandmother. It was great to hear the sound of love on the other end of the telephone. I was unable to talk to my 18-year-old daughter who is away at college. I miss her so much. It was good to hear that her sister and brother have been talking to her and taking care of each other. I am so glad that all of our children love each other. My soon-to-be stepdaughter also lives away but we keep in touch by telephone when she is not visiting us. I miss them all so much. If there are any mothers out there considering leaving your children, think twice. It’s hard!! The kids also told me that my fiancé Scott is buying them lots of junk food while I am at Bridal Bootcamp eating Nutrisystem. How is that fair? I’m alright, though, because I have learned a different life style of healthy eating and exercise to take home.

Check out what the Green Team had to say about Episode 2.

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Bridal Bootcamp cast reveal
Bridal Bootcamp show page
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