LI couples live large in 'My Big Friggin' Wedding

'Bridezilla" meets "Jersey Shore" sums up VH1's new reality show, "My Big Friggin' Wedding," premiering Monday night at 9. Indeed, it even comes from the producers of "Jersey Shore," so it shouldn't be surprising that the five New Jersey and Long Island couples on this wedding-preparation show were picked for their, shall we say, colorful qualities.

Tammie Masotto and Daniel Jean from Massapequa, and Sandra Venturi and Joey Cimino from Lynbrook offered us their views, via telephone, on two topics.

On spending exorbitant money on a wedding rather than saving for a home down payment or a college fund:

Tammie: If you're gonna have a wedding and not gonna go big, you shouldn't do one. . . . you live one life, and if that's what you want to do in your life, you should do it, no matter what it is.

Daniel: I'm against spending over $50,000 on a wedding. I'd rather spend the money on a house. But I've been married before, and it's her first wedding, and I wanted to do what she wanted to make her happy.

Joey: Everybody always says during the process, you should have spent the money on a house, you don't need something so big . But at the end of the day, you have a great day, and it's worth it to celebrate with a nice, big party. But it's a big nut, a down payment on a house, so you also think that way. It's a Catch-22.

Sandra: In the end, it's the memory, just to say in your own mind you had the best wedding you could possibly have. That's more or less what I was getting at when I said on the first episode that weddings are a competition, and I'm going to win.

On all the drinking and screaming on the show:

Joey: It's TV. editing this and that. If you have a bland couple, they'll make it funny with the editing so people will want to see it.

Tammie: Yeah, there's a lot of drinking, a lot of partying, a lot of drama. But before any wedding comes that stuff. I had two bachelorette parties.