Being judged on TV can be extremely tough, says Dragons’ Den investor Sara Davies, who was a competitor on Strictly Come Dancing two years ago. That’s why, when she took on a judging role for her new BBC Two show alongside First Dates star Fred Sirieix and wedding industry expert Raj Somaiya, she was determined to be the fairest of them all.
The trio will guide eight wedding planners as they battle it out to prove they can design the most spectacular ceremonies for six loved-up couples. Each week, someone will be eliminated from the competition. In the final there will be just two competitors left to fight for the title of Ultimate Wedding Planner.
“I wanted to be fair as a judge,” says Sara, 39. “I wanted them to really respect me so if I gave them feedback, they would respect that it was coming from a good place.”
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However, Sara wasn’t afraid to point out collapsing cakes, floppy flowers or flat flutes of champagne as she followed the ambitious planners during the three days they had to pull off some elaborate surprises.
“When they weren’t doing a good job, I had to be able to call them out on it. It’s unfair to say something’s alright if it’s not good enough,” she warns. “If it’s not good enough I’ve got to be able to tell them.”
To make sure she got the tone right, Sara rewatched her own appearance on Strictly and cast her mind back to how some of the harsher criticisms made her shrivel inside and the kinder ones inspired her to do better.
“I’ve been on the other side and I’ve been judged,” says Sara. “I was preparing for the show by going over those Sunday nights where we would get judged and I would think, ‘What was it that I really valued as a contributor?’ and, ‘What did they do that really helped?’ I tried to analyse their body language too. I tried to think about how those judges made me feel in that moment. I’m trying to model myself on the best bits of all of them.”
After she had finished watching the Strictly judges in action, she turned to The Great British Bake Off.
“I tried to think about how can I be real,” she says. “I wanted them to respect me and I wanted them to be the best version of themselves.”
In the end she decided to try to be a mix of her hero Mary Berry and Strictly’s head judge Shirley Ballas.
“I bloody love Mary Berry – I want to be Mary Berry,” says Sara. “I have her on a pedestal. I watched a lot of Mary. Shirley Ballas is also a really fair judge.”
Sara’s own wedding was 16 years ago, when she tied the knot with accountant husband Simon. Although she didn’t have a wedding planner, she did outsource the job to her best friend because she was busy starting her multi-million pound crafting empire. And just like in her business deals, she had a tight bottom line.
“I dreamed about planning my own wedding for years but I finished university, Simon proposed and I started my own businesses. Compared to running a business, organising a wedding paled away into insignificance,” Sara explains. “So we agreed a budget for the wedding and Sophie, my best friend, went to all the wedding shows with my mum and my little sister.
I would write blank cheques and she would send off the deposits – but she had the spreadsheets to work from as to whether or not she could proceed!”
When Sara filmed Ultimate Wedding Planner, the most difficult thing for her was not being able to join in the creative process.
“I found it really frustrating because I so badly wanted to get in and help them,” she says. “There was one night a contestant was making wedding favours for one of the weddings so I came in to interview her while she was doing them and I made six of them.” However, producers quickly spotted her surreptitious assistance and banished her to her hotel room.
“I wanted so badly to sit in that room and craft all night and chat away and I couldn’t,” sighs Sara. “I had to go to my room.”
With a couple’s big day in the balance, the wedding planners on the show are under a lot of pressure, but Sara never appears to become flustered.
“I am a big advocate of trying to maintain a low stress base so that when the high stress moments come you can cope with them better,” says Sara. “My way of coping with stress is to go for a run. If I get up and I can go and run, get all those endorphins going, then I can go into the day feeling like I’m in control.”
As well as running, Sara still loves dancing, and she gets the opportunity to bust out her fancy footwork at one of the weddings in the show.
“There is one wedding where the couple are dancers and the wedding guests are all dancers as well,” reveals Sara. “They love to do swing dancing so they taught me
the moves and I ended up dancing with the groom! It was just magical.”
Ultimate Wedding Planner airs 8th August at 9pm on BBC Two.
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