Here's an inside glimpse of our episode on House Hunters International!
As many of you now know, Joe and I recently made our TV debut on House Hunters International! The whole experience has been incredibly surreal. I was contacted by a casting office for HGTV’s House Hunters International asking if we would be interested in shooting with the show, they had found me on Instagram! If you haven’t heard of House Hunters, you obviously haven't ever been bored on a Southwest flight, but the basis of the show is that you move abroad and then the show helps you find your perfect place in your new city! First of all, I can’t say instagram never did anything for me, because I was found completely through moving hashtags by the casting office and I am sure many of you are now reading this post thanks to Instagram connecting us!
I’ve had so many questions from friends and family since the show aired about a week ago, so I wanted to give you a glimpse into the behind the scenes of the show! If you haven’t had a chance to watch the show, we are Season 160, Episode 4 and you can watch on this link, House Hunters International.
On the first day of shooting, we were super nervous and had no idea what to expect. Joe joked about needing a makeup artist, which the show does NOT provide for the record, and in all reality I was the one who ended up powdering both of our noses.
We arrived at the first meeting location where we sat for our interviews. There were 4 team members total in the crew; the director, the audio guy, the camera guy, and the fixer (basically the guy doing all the running around and speaking German for us). The following day, we met our real estate agent. Over five days, we spent about 40-50 hours shooting for the show. That means for our 23 minute and 55 second episode, A LOT of things were not included in the episode. The director had all kinds of crazy ideas like doing a segment of me making homemade tie dye to show to my trendy followers on the blog or surprising Mr. Sparkle (Joe) with a sequined shirt and catching his reaction on film. We ended up not having time to do many of those ideas, but even some of the things we did have time to shoot, didn’t end up on the show.
Because there is no great way to answer all of your questions, I’ve compiled some of the most common ones, but feel free to leave additional questions in the comments!
For the record, we keep the cats on the top floor of our house where they have three rooms and plenty of space to run around. Fuzzy, our blind cat, is not able to safely navigate the stairs and the other cat, Fatty, can navigate the barrier to come down the stairs if she wishes.
Top Five Questions
How were you cast for the show?
If you are moving and interested in applying to be on the show, it is my understanding that the show is typically cast through applications, but that is not how we landed our TV debut on the show. I was found by the HGTV casting company through my Instagram hashtags like #movingabroad and #movingtogermany and received an email asking if we would be interested in being on the show. To be honest, with Joe’s work schedule it was almost impossible to find a time to shoot the episode, but we were able to make it work and I am so thankful for the experience!
Does Joe love the pets more than he loves you?
If you know anything about my husband, you know he is NOT a huge fan of owning pets. Now, do not get me wrong, he cares for and loves our pets very well, but he jokes that if I died, they would be put outside immediately. Joe lovingly puts up with the pets for me and that is the ONLY reason we have them. I have always loved having pets, and they are a great comfort for me when Joe is traveling for work (which is typically over 250 days of the year with his current job). Joe loves me, and therefore he tolerates the pets.
Was the realtor as bad as she seemed on the show?
Many of you had visceral reactions to how the realtor treated me on the episode and I appreciate your love and support, but do not forget that the only thing “real” about reality TV is the name! Every single word in the episode is intentionally put there. Remember, they have hours of film to choose from when compiling each 20ish minutes episode, so of course, they can dramatize each scene in the show. In actuality, we got along great with the real estate agent and joked around with her the entire time!
Were you pregnant when you shot the episode?
NO! While I am happy to pose with a beer in a picture even while pregnant, the episode was shot while Joe and I were trying for a baby, but not pregnant.
Why did you need four bedrooms if it was just the two of you?!?
The show failed to add the small (but very important detail) that we were hoping and praying to start a family while living here in Kaiserslautern, Germany. If you haven’t seen the announcement, we are ecstatic to be welcoming a baby boy into our world in January 2021, so with the idea that we might have family coming to stay with us AND a new nursery for our first child, four bedrooms was important to us. Joe does much of his job from home when he isn’t traveling, so it was very important for him to have his own office space. And finally, yes, I do have a lot of clothes, and the house we decided on has zero, you heard that right ZERO, closets. That means, no pantry, no coat closet, no linen closet, no storage closets, and no clothing closets. With that in mind, it was important to me to have a space to organize it all. Four bedrooms wasn’t a requirement, but we did end up finding a great house with four bedrooms and now, with my baby belly growing, we are thankful for the space!
Here is the official plot of our episode, Dressing Up in Kaiserslautern:
A Louisiana couple is following his military transfer to Kaiserslautern, Germany. She's giving up her job for the move and starting a fashion and style blog, so she hopes to find a home with plenty of space for her clothes, as well as room for their pets.
If you did not get a chance to catch it live, our episode can be found here or on the HGTV website, here. I would love to hear what you think about our episode!!!
Xo,
Theresa
