Excerpts from a GQ Magazine Article

The Mail Order Bride

“He wanted a postcard-perfect wife: someone gorgeous, of course, who was caring and happy to serve her man and not as spoiled as the American women he knew. So he looked to South America and outsourced the search. Soon, he had more women than he could deal with.”

“He surfed through an array of poorly designed and possibly fraudulent sites until he found a firm called International Introductions (latin-wife.com), which virtually guarantees to connect any solvent, unrepulsive man with a pretty girl in the coastal Colombian city of Barranquilla. For $1,375, the company will put you in a nice hotel, provide a translator, and guide you through interviews designed to overcome the culture and language barriers.”

“Steven’s desire to get married has compelled these seven Colombian women and roughly thirty-five more he’ll meet over the next two days to consider him as a husband.”

“Steven looked happily wasted at the hotel. He’d been hustled from one interview to the next since the moment we’d landed in Colombia. And now, as he swirled wine around in his glass, he seemed a bit delirious, glazed over with lust and possibilities. He kept rubbing his shaved head with the flat of his hand. “Oh man,” he said, grinning. “I’m buzzing. What a trip!”

(As of 2025, Steven is happily married and has two children with the Colombian woman he met for this story using our Matchmaking Romance Service.)

Excerpts from a Valentine’s Day Newspaper Article in Houston

Love in the 21st Century

“Four years divorced, with custody of his two daughters, he was tired of being single. He tried everything without success: bars, blind dates, dating services. A marriage agency seemed like a very good option. He found one on the internet that offered to put him into contact with women from Barranquilla, Colombia, who were interested in meeting American men for marriage. His friends thought he was crazy, and his family ‘thought he was retarded.'”

“The LeBlancs could now be the couple in an ad for one of these marriage agencies. He was looking for a woman with family values, and he found one, who was 14 years younger, who didn’t speak his language. He married her, and they now live together in the United States.”

“With the marriage agency Latin-Wife.com, the one LeBlanc hired, the man travels to Barranquilla, where he has introductions with ten women and a translator.”

Beautiful Joels

“‘In a couple of days you can meet forty or fifty women,’ explains Jamie, founder of the marriage agency. After the introductions, the agency gives him feedback on the women he liked. For several days, he goes on dates with each woman, looking for the one he thinks he could share his life with.”

“In Colombia, the marriage agency looks for women who they think will be good candidates. ‘Seventy percent of the men are interested in the more beautiful women who make up thirty percent of the women,’ says the postmodern cupid.”

“Most of his clients are men between 35 and 45 years old, business owners or professionals attracted to Latin beauty. The women, who do not pay for the service, are mostly young, though some are over fifty years old.”

“With the engagement ring and a fiancée visa that took eight months to arrive, Joels arrived in Houston. A month later she was married, and a year after that, she got pregnant. Those who said he was crazy are now jealous of his marriage, says LeBlanc.”