You can do fake profiles, but be very clear that they are examples and rank them lowest. 

When the first new users join the site, congratulate them for being "Founding Members" and give them a badge on their profile. This helps set their expectations that the site will get better. 

Use your Founding Members to help recruit their friends. Give them credit for successful referrals. Give their referral the same credit so your Founding Members feel like they are giving their friends a favor.

Another trick is to build buzz around the site in advance of launching. Ask newbies to enter just enough information to make a basic profile, but don't show anything else. Give them 10 or 20 limited invites to their friends to do the same. This is how GMail first launched. After your launch have members enhance their profiles.

You mentioned your service is "local". Are there other services you can provide to your local community that would work with your dating service? Ex: restaurant reservations or activity group recruiting. You could use such a service to 1) recruit initial members in advance of the launch and 2) continue providing services to them after they "graduate" by finding a relationship.

Consider segmenting your market more. Thjs might suggest some compatible organizations to market to without having to worry about violating other dating sites terms of usage. Examples such organizations in my area are "Parents without Partners" and "Widows and Widowers".

Finally, if you have even a small marketing budget, use Google Adwords. These can be finely targeted even to location. Remember to treat these initial new people as Founding Members.