Belfast’s Chantelle is in the Ultimate Wedding Planner final

It’s supposed to be one of the happiest days of your lives, but getting married can be a stressful experience.

So, many people who have been following Ultimate Wedding Planner will have been impressed with the bravery of the couples who agreed to let the contestants loose on their big days.

There have been some hairy moments over the past few weeks for the planners, but as we reach the final tonight Chantelle Walsh from Belfast is hoping to lift the accolade!

However she has to wow the judges – Dragon’s Den entrepreneur Sara Davies, hospitality expert Fred Sirieix and events planner extraordinaire Raj Somaiya – as well as the bride and groom.

Raj admits it has occasionally been a challenge, saying: “There were multiple mishaps but that’s to be expected and part of the experience. [I] was often anxious because at the end of the day I wanted to look after the couple, I wanted to make sure their wedding went well. Given the nature of the series, the planners were often overzealous and were overpromising but under delivering.”

He adds: “It was often quite stressful. Sometimes I could foresee things were going to go wrong but I had to back off and let them make their own mistakes, even though I knew I would have to go and fix them later. Sometimes they fixed their errors themselves or, if not, I stepped in as the priority was always the couple getting married.”

Luckily, it seems the planners did all learn from any early mistakes, and Raj has been impressed by just how far they’ve come.

He says: “My highlight really was seeing the planners developing their skills as we progressed through the series. At the start, they were new to the planning world, but by episode six they were real wedding planners. They’d really learnt, taken in our feedback and progressed in their learning and career development. Absolutely amazing!”

We’ll see how much the remaining two planners, Chantelle and Toby (who got the golden ticket last week), have learnt in tonight’s final as they go head-to-head to pull off a wedding completely from scratch – and they have just three days to do it. Who will deliver the perfect big day, wowing the judges and, more importantly the (hopefully) happy couple? And who will have their own reason to celebrate when they are crowned the Ultimate Wedding Planner?

If the show has inspired you to give professional planning a go, then Raj has some words of wisdom to share. He says: “I think the most important thing about wanting to become a wedding planner or a supplier in the wedding industry is that you are passionate about what you do. When things go wrong or when things are not going according to plan, you really need to have that passion and drive to get through it.

“If you are weak at the knees and if you are going to crumble at the first hurdle, then really don’t take this job on. When you are so passionate about something, you’ll be able to fight through it.”