SANTA CRUZ — Picture this: You had a summer romance 15 years ago, and while you liked the person you were in a relationship with, you had to break it off because you were going off to school and forging different paths. You still keep in touch with your former partner and think fondly of that time, wondering what might have been.
Then out of the blue, you get a message from that same former partner about trying to reignite that relationship. What’s more: these efforts will be broadcast to millions over a new streaming site. Oh, and it will all take place in Italy, and Chilli from TLC and Jack from “Boy Meets World” will coach you throughout the process.
It might sound farfetched, but this is exactly what happened to Blake Ward of Scotts Valley and Camille Castro of Santa Cruz. They had a romance in the summer of 2010 and worked to rekindle it on “Second Chance Love,” a new Hallmark+ reality series that premiered Jan. 1. The show brings five former couples to Sardinia, Italy, where they take part in romantic activities amid a breathtaking Mediterranean backdrop to see if they can reignite the sparks from decades ago. The series is hosted by Rozonda “Chilli” Thomas of the ’90s R&B group TLC and actor Matthew Lawrence of “Boy Meets World” and “Mrs. Doubtfire” fame, both of whom have been dating since 2022.
While viewers will have to watch the series to see how far Castro and Ward got, both maintain that it was a great experience, especially the other couples they met.
“We got so lucky to meet such genuine souls,” said Castro. “Everyone was so humble, so kind, so welcoming. We all had such a great time together.”
Both Ward and Castro grew up in Santa Cruz, with Castro attending Santa Cruz Waldorf School and then Santa Cruz High School and Ward attending Baymonte Christian School and Scotts Valley High School. Even when attending different schools, Ward said his friend group and Castro’s friend group began crossing paths around high school.
“That’s how we ended up connecting,” he said.
One trait both Castro and Ward had in common was a shared love of music at an early age. Ward is the son of Bobbie Ward, a vocal coach and regular singer on “The Lawrence Welk Show” who also performed with the likes of Jan and Dean, Merle Haggard and Garth Brooks and even performed for President Ronald Reagan. From a very young age, Castro loved to sing and was encouraged by her mother to join the Cabrillo Youth Chorus under the direction of Cheryl Anderson.
“She trained me in opera, so I did opera and choir for so many years,” said Castro. “We actually got to perform at Carnegie Hall in New York.”
Ward began writing music, playing guitar and singing, which led him to the Boardwalk Bowl in 2010 where Castro was singing karaoke.
“She got up on stage and just absolutely crushed it,” he said. “She just had an angelic voice, and good old Blake’s heart skipped a couple beats and went up there and did my part.”
Ward and Castro began dating that summer, with music being a core part of their relationship. They performed and wrote music together and shot music videos.
“It was really starting to blossom,” said Ward.
However, Ward was accepted into Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles as Castro still had to finish high school. This meant he had to “clip the rose” of their relationship, but he kept thinking of her.
“There would be nights in my freshman dorm room where I’m about to go to sleep and I’m staring up at the ceiling, and I’m wondering what she’s up to,” he said. “But I can’t drive up to see her any whim of the moment because I’m about five hours away by car.”
Ward and Castro would see each other over holidays and maintained sporadic contact over the years. Flash forward to 2025, where Ward is working as a Realtor and Castro as a personal assistant. Castro was contacted by a casting director she had friended on Facebook about an opportunity to compete on a dating reality show but did not tell her what channel. She surmised that her posts may have led to this conversation.
“I’m a hopeless romantic, and I posted a lot about love,” she said. “That is how they found me.”
As Castro was doing a round of interviews with casting directors, she reached out to Ward to see if he was interested.
“I’m in the middle of writing a purchase agreement for a client … and she’s like ‘Hey, do you want to do this thing with me?’” said Ward. “I wasn’t thinking anything of it, I was like ‘Yeah, sure, OK.’ All of a sudden, we started getting this trickle of emails coming in being like ‘Hey, congrats! You made it to the next round!’”
The emails did not raise Ward’s suspicions, however, until he was presented with a contract. Soon, he and Castro were flown out to Sardinia for “Second Chance Love,” a series where five former couples of different ages are given another chance to fall in love all over again. The show is exclusive to Hallmark+, the streaming arm of the Hallmark Channel, famous for its holiday-themed romance movies.
In fact, Ward said the show was described to him as being like a Hallmark Christmas movie except real, which he said differed from other dating reality shows.
“This show is something that everybody can watch,” he said. “The whole family can sit down and watch this thing. There are other dating shows that are not like that.”
Once again, music was the crux of Castro and Ward’s relationship during the show. Ward would bring out his guitar, and he and Castro would duet on renditions of popular songs until they were told by producers they did not have the rights to perform them on the show. However, this allowed its own opportunities to push their relationship forward.
“They’re like, ‘Here’s the thing; You can’t play those, we don’t have the sync rights, so you guys have to write original music,’” he said. “Over the course of the show, you get to see Camille and I really bond again with music and develop some songs.”
This was Ward’s first trip to Italy and Castro’s second, having been to Florence a decade ago, and both fell in love with their surroundings, from the views to the incomparable Italian pasta.
“You look out and see the most beautiful clear water, the boats, Giorgio Armani’s big yacht right in front of our faces,” said Castro. “The energy is so different, the food is incredible.”
“It was just such a surreal experience that Camille and I got to share with each other and reconnect after all these years,” said Ward. “We picked back up where we left off.”
In addition to the other couples, Castro praised the crew.
“They always had our backs, they always made sure that we were doing OK,” she said. “They wanted to check in with us about how the relationship was going, and it’s hard to find that in Hollywood.”
Ward and Castro also enjoyed meeting Lawrence and Thomas and seeing another side of them.
“We’ve grown up with them,” said Ward. “We’ve known them our entire lives, and here they are in person and they’re the most down-to-earth people. You can just sit there and have a cocktail with them and just chill and hang out, and they were just super genuine people.”
Thomas and Lawrence shared their story about how they met to contestants, which both Castro and Ward found inspiring.
“To see Chilli and Matthew’s relationship grow while we were there, it was beautiful,” said Castro.
Since the show began airing, Castro and Ward said their phones have been blowing up with text messages, and their Instagram accounts have seen an influx of new followers. They hosted a premiere party at Ward’s sister’s property in Malibu, complete with a red carpet and attendance from the cast and producers Jonathan and Meredith Sinclair who sent videos of the cast reacting to seeing themselves on TV for the first time.
“For Hallmark to have Camille and myself and the rest of the cast be a part of their vision and their journey and what they wanted for ‘Second Chance Love,’ it was a true honor of a lifetime,” said Ward.
New episodes of “Second Chance Love” premiere Thursdays at midnight on HallmarkPlus.com.
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