when sarah karaka-davies walked into a bar in cardiff and met john lloyd, little did she know that just 16 months later she would be walking down the aisle to marry him.

IN July 2007 Sarah, a manager in the South Wales Evening Post's advertising department, who lived in Carmarthen, went to Cardiff with her friend to see Rod Stewart. After the show they called into a bar, where she met her husband-to-be John, a teacher in Barry. Eight months later, John proposed to Sarah at the very romantic location of Castell Coch.

Sarah said: As a child I had always thought of it as a fairytale castle, but had never visited the place. John grew up there so it was a special place for him too. He asked me to marry him on the drawbridge and presented me with a beautiful diamond solitaire ring, which he had chosen from Jenny Wren in Cowbridge. It really was a total, yet wonderful, surprise and the lovely thing was when we were there it started to snow, which made the castle even more romantic.

Sarah and John wanted a winter wedding and lost no time in organising the event and married November 29 last year at Llanllwch Church, Carmarthen, with a reception at the Cawdor Hotel in Llandeilo for 75 family and friends.
Music was an important part of the ceremony with a mix that reflected both a Welsh and seasonal time of year theme. The Carmarthen Male Voice Choir sang two carols, O Come, All Ye Faithful and Hark the Herald Angels Sing as well as two Welsh hymns, Calon Lan and Ar Hyd Y Nos. White Christmas was played when they were signing the register.

The couple were also keen to acknowledge Sarah's Moari ancestry and the choir learned Po Kari Kari Ana, the Moari equivalent of Calon Lan as a special surprise for Sarahâ's father.

The wedding was a black tie affair, and John broke with tradition and had two best men. Sarah wore a classic white dress, brought from High Society in Cowbridge. Sarah said: As I went with my Mum to choose my dress and High Society was the second shop we visited. I tried on six dresses and the one I chose was the last one. A beautiful silk and lace Sassi Holford dress, with a fitted strapless bodice, that I fell in love with straight away. They also designed and made me a lovely lace shrug to cover my shoulders.I had five adult bridesmaids that were all in black evening dresses, which we brought from Coast.

On the day I was up really early at 6.30am, when my hairdresser arrived I wanted something a bit different from my normal style, so we had a practice session in the weeks before the wedding. I had half my hair up and the rest down, which looked really romantic. Then at 9am my make-up artist Ellie McNair arrived. She does a lot of work with TV celebrities.We had already had a run through the week before and she knew exactly the look I was after.

Sarah and her bridesmaids bouquets reflected the winter wedding theme, with white roses, ivy and mistletoe. This was also highlighted in the table decorations, which had candelabra's decorated with the same white roses, pine cones, candles, mistletoe and ivy. Sarah and John's beautiful three tier rich fruit wedding cake was made by a friend, as a wedding present and was trimmed with white and decorated with the same co-ordinating floral arrangements.

The table plan at the reception paid homage to the couple's love of Beatles music, with all the tables being named after Beatles songs, with the top table, being call All You Need Is Love. The Welsh-New Zealand theme was also displayed in the four-course meal which had a starter of soup using sweet potato, a New Zealand favourite, and Welsh lamb as a main course.

The couple gave each guest favours with a difference, with every lady having a chocolate lovespoon, with a daffodil and Welsh dragon on it, and the men had a CD of their favourite songs. The CD cover was especially designed to reflect Sarah's father, who has Maori ancestry and had the Maori triple twist emblem.

Sarah said: "We both felt this was a lovely, very personal touch: the crisscross form represents the many paths of life and love and the joining together of two people for eternity.


The triple twist also refers to the joining of two people or cultures, in our case Maori and Welsh, but also John and I. The couple were delighted by the work of Absolute Sign and Print in producing the table plan and covers to such a high standard.

The couple even had a surprise for the guests, their first dance was a very special moment dancing to the Detroit Spinners and "Then Came You". They amazed guests, with a special lively dance routine. "Nobody knew that we had taken dance lessons, before and we got a real round of applause for our efforts," said Sarah.

Instead of having a wedding book for guests to sign they had a large black and white portrait picture of the couple, which guests signed around the edges. Sarah and John had to wait for December 18 for their five-day honeymoon in New York. One night they stayed at the prestigious Plaza hotel overlooking Central Park and also dined at Gordon Ramsay at the London restaurant.

And finally the bride's verdict, was it a fairytale wedding to match John's fairytale proposal nine months ago."It was such a wonderful day, I never really wanted it to end, and John is so romantic he keeps each day magical," she said.