Karen Hauer married her fiancé Jordan Wyn-Jones in a surprise wedding in Hampshire last week. While their engagement and nuptials caught their fans by surprise, the bride-to-be has been documenting her wedding planning exclusively with HELLO! for months – and now we can reveal all.
READ: Inside Karen Hauer and Jordan Wyn-Jones' magical wedding - EXCLUSIVE
From how Jordan proposed, to her unique and special engagement ring, to finding her dress… read along to get all the details from the bride herself.
ENGAGEMENT
It's very special to have got married at Chewton Glen, as it's where Jordan proposed. It was just before Christmas, after I had finished Strictly for the year, and was having a few days rest and relaxation with Jordan and the dogs. It took me completely by surprise as he proposed as I was in the shower! It was such a special end to 2021.
MORE: See the Strictly Come Dancing professionals' romantic wedding and engagement photos
Jordan proposed with his late mother's ring, which is what you see in this picture, which was taken the night of our engagement. I know it meant the world to him for me to have it. We've since remodelled it together, so that it has the core of his mother's ring, but also our flair added to it.
FINDING THE DRESS
I tried on everything in the shop and already had a top three when my friend (and bridesmaid) Bex asked me to try this on just to keep her happy as she thought it was beautiful and that I would look amazing in it. It was everything I didn’t think I wanted. It had sleeves, a big skirt, and I didn't want those things! But when I put it on, my heart just jumped with joy. Bex and Talia, another friend and bridesmaid who was with us, saw that my eyes lit up and it was an emotional moment. I knew it was the one.
WATCH: Karen's wedding diary, watch her and Jordan's dance rehearsal, menu tasting and more
I have three bridesmaids: Bex, Talia and my fellow Strictly professional Luba Mushtuk. Luba wasn't able to make it when I went wedding dress shopping but we kept in touch on the day so that she was also a part of it!
I did not want to leave the dress behind when I had to leave! I loved it THIS much!
GALLERY: See the Strictly pros' wedding dresses
FLOWER SELECTION
The organisers at Chewton Glen have been absolutely amazing! Jordan and I spent the day there in April looking at all the options for elements of our wedding including the flowers, the music and the food. They made the whole day really relaxed and fun and we had some hard decisions to make as the choices for each were out of this world.
I'm pretty sure I said yes to all the florists as I loved everything they all did so much! We eventually decided and I'm thrilled with what they did for us – it was everything we dreamed of and complemented my dress so well.
MENU - WINE TASTING
Possibly the most fun part of the tasting – the wine! I am a wine lover, so this was a particularly good part of our trial day and we were pretty spoilt for choice as you can see!
If there’s one thing I love more than wine, it might be food! I can’t tell you how full we were after the tasting but we eventually decided on an amazing menu for our loved ones. To start we had a choice of smoked trout and haddock fishcake, wild mushroom velouté or salt-baked heritage beetroot. Then, a roast sirloin of beef (my choice!), a roast chicken or barbecued cauliflower heart. Finally, dessert was an exotic fresh fruit platter or apple tarte tatin. I’m surprised anyone had the energy to dance afterwards, we were all in a food coma!
PRACTICING THE WEDDING DANCE
We didn't want to go too over the top with a whole choreographed performance, but we did want to do a little something to start our first dance, which we did to Ocean by David Davis which is a beautiful song. We took a few fun videos of us practicing – we even had a little comedy falling out when I forgot the steps and he remembered them! Watch video above.
THE HEN NIGHT
I had a hen weekend in London the Friday and Saturday before the wedding was the Tuesday. I wanted to do it close so that my family could come who flew over to the UK from New York. So on the Friday we headed for dinner then onto a late night show of Magic Mike. And that's all I'll say on that! On Saturday I went with my mom, sister and bridesmaids to watch Marc Anthony perform at Wembley and it was absolutely incredible. He's one of my favourite performers and to see him live was just unreal. The perfect hen weekend!