'I was a mess': Jeremiah Brent on Netflix's tear-jerking surprise-wedding series 'Say I Do'

For better or worse. Interior designer Jeremiah Brent playfully describes his role on “Say I Do” as “a nightmare.”

In the new Netflix series (streaming now), Brent partners with fashion designer Thai Nguyen and chef Gabriele Bertaccini to help grooms surprise partners with the weddings of their dreams in about a week. Each of the eight episodes introduces one deserving couple. The tall task and tight turnaround were not lost on Brent. 

“I felt like I needed to be in an adult-size diaper by the end of that experience,” he jokes to USA TODAY. “There are so many moving parts to a wedding, and I, it turns out, am a bit of a perfectionist.” Brent, 35, felt the pressure to make each day beautiful and personalize the experience so the couple could “see themselves" in the celebration.

“It was like, ‘How do I dig? How do I get the information? How do I pull together a 100-person wedding in four days and make sure that the aunt that’s gonna cause drama is sitting in the right spot?’” he recalls.

Ultimately, Brent says he “thoroughly enjoyed” the pace, and that “it was all worth it” when he witnessed the pairs exchange vows.

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“Say I Do” isn’t short on emotion or moving moments. Couples featured have faced numerous, heartbreaking challenges. The premiere shows how Marcus was a shoulder to cry on when Tiffany lost her father and then her sister within months. Another pair, Jonathan and Jason, battled Jason's stage 4 cancer. In another episode, we see Alex and her love, Michael, care for their two young nephews, due to his sister's drug problem.

“I feel like every other minute of that show I’m crying,” Brent says. “I was crying basically just for three months straight.”

“I was so emotional, ’cause (the couples) were so vulnerable and so honest and they really trusted us in so many different ways," he explains. "I was a mess, that’s for sure.”

The "Say I Do" experts also found themselves opening up to the couples about their personal lives. Brent talks with Michael about drug issues that have affected his own extended family. Bertaccini shares with Marcus that he is HIV-positive. 

"I think it’s a testament to that power of vulnerability," says Brent about the hosts' candor. "We have these wonderful, amazing people sitting with us, sharing some of the most beautiful things in their lives and some of the most painful … and I think it just opened us all up in a way that none of us really expected."

With Michael, Brent says, "I did not anticipate sharing any of that stuff about my own life, but I saw so much of his pain, and I could connect to it, ’cause I had been through it."

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Brent praises his co-stars, calling Nguyen "one of the most talented designers I’ve ever met. Each week he is literally creating couture gowns for these brides, and often he would be doing the bridesmaids' dresses, he’d be doing the grooms' tuxedos."

Brent loves the sentimentality food holds for Bertaccini. "It always is about memory and triggering a chapter in your life and things that bring you joy," says Brent. "Our mission, each of us, was to find ways, again, to translate these peoples’ stories through our perspective avenue, through what we do. And we had a lot of fun, kind of working with one another to weave that all together."

Brent, who married interior designer Nate Berkus in 2014, recognizes the significance of one's wedding day. 

“Having been married and having stood up in front of people and had my own wedding, I understand the importance of that ceremony and the choice that you’re making to spend your life with somebody and tell everybody in your life why," he says. "So, I took it very seriously, as did Gabriele and Thai. And we really wanted to make sure that we got it right every time.”

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