Season's Greetings!

Happy Holidays to all our friends and followers, to everyone we work with as well as all those who help our well-oiled wedding machine turn! Wherever you are in the world this holiday season, we wish you joy and a peaceful and prosperous New Year. 

This is the last time we will use this image (by BarkerEvans.com) which is the orginal cover couple used on my original 'Wedding Bible'. The new edition will be published next year and as this one has brought us so much luck over the past six years, I thought it might be a good omen to end the year on! Happy Christmas...

© Sarah Haywood

2011 has been quite a year - here are a few of our highlights:

THE ROYAL WEDDING

The build up to the wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton dominated the first quarter of the year: pretty much every week from the day the engagement was announced last November, we entertained TV crews and journalists from across the world eager to know just how we do things here in UK brideland: eventually we had a permanent 'wedding set' in the corner of my office complete with a wedding gown and a crystal champagne bucket. But nothing prepared me for the wedding week itself: 17 live appearances on TV and radio networks from Australasia to the Americas, from India to Japan. I spent the week crisscrossing between the studios at Buckingham Palace and those opposite Westminster Abbey: from 6am for BBC Breakfast News here in the UK through to 2am appearances for Channel 9 Australia's breakfast show.

The day of the royal nuptials is one I will never forget (both wonderful and surreal): at 6am I walked through the crowds gathered along The Mall to get to the CNN studio in the media complex erected adjacent to the Palace. As their Wedding Expert I found myself next to Piers Morgan with Kat Deely and Anderson Cooper for CNN's worldwide, live simulcast - and with a bird's eye view of the Procession.  At 3am I was still going strong (and following a bizarre web chat with the Washington Post during which someone actually asked me: "were the soldiers real?") and back with Channel 9 Australia's breakfast show. After just three hours sleep I caught a flight to Florence and a return to the day job: arranging weddings (and a very forgiving bride and groom who did not have me at their side for the usual wedding week build up - thank you N&M)! 

© Sarah Haywood

Season's Greetings!

We wish a Merry Christmas to all the lovely couples and their familes whose weddings we have planned over the past twelve months (thank you for lettings us into your lives and treating us so well), the talented suppliers and beautiful venues we have worked with (thank you for making us look so good!), those who keep our business machine so well oiled - our PR and Design agencies, accountants, lawyers and bankers.

Thank you too the press both here in the UK and abroad for the kindness you have shown us and for the amazing interetest in us and our work. Royal Wedding week was a highlight: I belive I appeared across 6 contentns in 5 days  and including 15 live TV broadscasts across the world.  Appearing as CNN's wedding expert on the day of the Royal nuptials and being part of the biggest wedding story that I wil certianly ever see, was both a privilege and pleasure.

This beautiful Tuscan landscape in the snow was taken by our friend Carlo Carletti in Crete Senesi which lies to the south of Siena. It would make a great screensaver and he is happy for you to use it as such.

We wish all of you, wherever you are in the world a very Merry Christmas and peaceful and prosperous 2012.

© Sarah Haywood