Being on a TV Show! - A Place in the Sun - Our Experience

We hinted in a previous post that in the new year we would have some exciting news to share and we are finally able to tell you all about it! Back in November we filmed an episode of A Place in the Sun, Winter Sun in Orlando, Florida and it will be airing this week! In conjunction with its airing (on Channel 4 at 4pm Wednesday 10th February) we wanted to share our experience with you. We have not seen the episode ourselves yet so we are excited (and a bit scared) to see it!

To fully explain how it came to be we have to go back to the start of 2015. Mimi was surprised with a proposal when her Orlando based boyfriend travelled to the UK with a beautiful engagement ring! From that day we started to talk about the future with the newlyweds living in Florida and myself and Mr P living in the UK. We came to the decision that we would invest in property in the Orlando area and rent it to the newlyweds. We spent some of our August vacation looking at properties but drew a blank. That was when we had the idea to apply to A Place in the Sun! We didn’t think we would hear anything but a few days later we got a call from the Casting Assitant Producer who chatted about our plans and invited us for a screen test in London.  We went the following week and soon after that we were being filmed at home for the ‘at home’ segment of the show! The following week we received a call to say that Channel 4 wanted us for the show and then the ball started rolling!

Within 2 weeks we were on a plane to Orlando International Airport. Everything happened so quickly we didn’t have time to think! We were directed to take with us 2 of the same outfit for our week of filming (things can get a little sweaty in Orlando and for continuity we had to wear the same clothes all week!) with a change of clothes for the final chat. We pondered for ages over what to wear! We couldn’t wear dark colours (we both live in black), or stripes, or weird patterns. We settled on floral patterns and hoped they would pass the camera test!

We had no idea what to expect but when we arrived we met with the Producer/Director and the Assistant Producer and from the moment we met them we knew that we were in good hands. They were very welcoming and totally put us at ease explaining how the week would work and what we should expect. We were due to start filming the following day so we felt much more relaxed once we had a better idea of what to expect from our filming week.

Early the next morning (Monday) we met the crew and our adventure began! In addition to the producer/director and the assistant producer we had a cameraman and a sound engineer. All of the crew proved to be very supportive, kind, funny and really helped to make the experience a positive one. We had been excited to see who our presenter would be and we were delighted to meet the stunning Laura Hamilton. As our week wore on we were so happy that we lucked out in being assigned Laura as she was incredibly lovely, down to earth and friendly and we hit it off immediately. Mimi and I are very close and have a sense of humour that can take some getting used to but Laura got us from the start and was totally on our wavelength making our week even more fun.

We could not possibly have known how much we would enjoy the whole experience! On day one we set off at 7.30am to film the initial chat in front of a beautiful lake (with alligators!) and then after lunch we moved on to film a chat in a boutique in the town of Celebration where Laura chatted to us about our relationship and our blog! We then saw property number one which was a really lovely apartment with garage. We wrapped up the day around 5pm as the clocks had gone back the day prior and it was starting to get a little dark.

Day 1: Location and Filming with Laura



We started day two at an orange grove! I am sure that on camera it will look beautiful but what you will not see is that there were ants biting our feet for the whole time we were filming there and it was soooo hot! We literally laughed so much! Every time we started to film either a plane went overhead or someone was bitten by an ant! (boy does it sting!!) We were very glad to escape the orange grove and head into the attached shop where they made fresh squeezed orange slushies! Yum! We saw property 2 that afternoon and (spoiler alert!) a couple of tears were shed!

Day 1 & 2 Filming Locations; The Enchanted Boutique in Celebration and The Orange Grove

Day three was a long day where we saw properties 3 and 4 and we also filmed two separate chats with Laura (look out for a cameo from Mimi's then fiancé now husband!) Both properties we were shown were houses rather than condos and (another spoiler alert!) one of them was a game changer!

A beautiful location for day 3 chat 

Day four was the final day of filming. We were shown property 5 and in the afternoon we filmed our final chat with Laura whilst sitting on the edge of a beautiful lake where water-skiing lessons were taught. The setting was amazing however it was very, very windy that afternoon which caused the sound engineer various issues! Once we started filming the cameraman was concerned that our hair was flying all over our faces so you will see that a solution was found in the form of sunglasses as a hairband! (Elle's sunglasses were kindly lent by Laura)

Our final filming day

By the end of day four we were sad to see our experience come to an end but so glad that we did it. After we applied to be on the show things happened so quickly that we didn't have time to think about it before we were there in front of the camera but we can honestly say that it was one of the most fantastic things we have ever done and wouldn't change it for anything.

Our final chat with the lovely Laura

Laura and all of the crew were so amazing and we could not have felt more relaxed in a pretty nerve racking situation. We thought that the experience would be much more formal but it was actually very relaxed and we laughed a lot.

We will not spoil it for you by giving anything away but safe to say that they helped us so much in our search and gave us the tools we needed to be able to move forward with our plans.

We also filmed a Vlog whilst we were there which shows you some behind the scenes footage!

We hope you enjoy the show and would love to hear your comments or thoughts below.

Elle and Mimi x

Many thanks to everyone at Freeform Productions especially Andy. Thanks to Laura for being so lovely. To the crew who worked so hard on our episode; Paul, Cristina, Sandy & Adam, thank you for making the process so much fun. We're glad we got you guys!