We have a beautiful engagement shoot on the blog today. Kerry Diamond ran an amazing competition on our blog last year, offering her full wedding package from a pre wedding shoot to on the day coverage!! Couples had to email Kerry directly and tell her a little more about their forthcoming wedding... And Nicola & Danny won this amazing prize! Over to the happy couple....

Danny and I met at our local cricket club, he played for the under 17's team and I would go along to keep my friend company as she was the scorer. He first asked me for a kiss when I was 14, but I turned him down as he thought I was older, I was there with my friend parents and he was drunk. We didn't speak again for three years when he tried again and this time I said yes.

Danny was home from Uni for the weekend, we met up in the local bar/club and he asked if I wanted to go to the cinema the following day. However he had forgotten that he hadn't brought enough clean clothes home and so turned up in the same thing he was wearing the night before. I can't remember what we watched but it wasn't very good. We didn't get in a bar afterwards as he was wearing his trainers, I accidently knocked over a table full of glasses in another bar and then we missed the train home, meaning we had to sit on a bus for an hour and half. I didn't even get a good night kiss. I'm not really sure why went on another date!?

Danny proposed while we were sat on a sand dune under the stars in the Sahara Desert. Last year (April 2013) we went on a mini trip around Morocco and spent a night in the desert 2 hour drive from any kind of street lights, camping (literally) under the stars. After he proposed we went back to the camp fire where the rest of our group were sat and kept it a secret for the rest of the night. When we got back to civilisation we let our family know by sending them a message on Facebook. He used a ring made from paperclips and a gem from an old broach to propose, as he knows how fussy I am. It meant we got to have a trip to London when we got home and I got to design my own ring.

I never thought about my wedding day growing up and don't really like 'weddingy' things. So we found planning quite difficult at first. Our day has been inspired as much by the things we don't want, as by the things we do. Not being religious Danny doesn't want to get married in a church. We both wanted an outdoor element. I don't want a formal day, a sit down meal, table plan, theme, colour scheme, white table cloths or anything sparkly, I also have a real aversion to ugly chairs, chair covers and carpets (did I mention I was fussy?). Thankfully Danny's auntie and uncle agreed to let us use their garden and we found wedding yurts.

What we do want, is the day to be fun, relaxed and informal. We want everyone else to enjoy it, but most important is that it is the perfect party that we want to go to. There is no theme, just a combination of all the decoration, food, entertainment, traditions that we like. We have been describing it as a posh bbq and want it to be more of a celebration of us being together for 10 years than a wedding; though it has definitely become more of a wedding than I first wanted. Hopefully it will have a rustic, festival-ish, relaxed garden party vibe. The best bits so far are the wedding yurts, the band- Gypsies of Bohemia and I'm really proud of the invitations and doillie table runners that I have made.

We found Kerry Diamond, when you blogged about her competition to win a full wedding package last year. I wouldn't usually enter a competition like this but we loved her photos, we seemed to fit her description of the kind of wedding/people she wanted and she is from the town next to where I am from (and where our wedding will be). It seemed too good an opportunity to miss.

Amazingly we won! I got a little bit too excited when I read her email in the middle of a shop and started jumping up and down, but we are very, very grateful that she chose us! From the first reply she sent to my competition entry, we knew we had found our wedding photographer.

Kerry suggested the location for our pre-wedding shoot, which was at Langsett Reservoir in The Peak District. If I am honest, although I knew it would be a good idea, so we could get to know Kerry better and would get used to having our pictures taken, both Danny and I were dreading the shoot. We thought we would feel silly posing. Actually though, we really enjoyed the whole evening, Kerry made us feel really comfortable and it all felt relaxed and informal. I love the photographs she has created; especially the colours and the atmosphere of the woods around us.

Happy wedding day guys.. Looking forward too seeing the photos - Oh and Gypsies of Bohemia - Loving them!! x