Marrying under the mistletoe

Aah, Christmas. Carols, mince pies and splurging on presents. Wedding presents, that is. As if there weren't enough parties going on this month, December is now becoming the smartest time of year to get hitched. Harrison Ford and Calista Flockhart are the latest celebrity couple to tie the knot during the Christmas period. They will be married on Christmas Day in the Grand Ballroom at the Plaza Hotel, New York - the location that saw the winter nuptials of Catherine Zeta Jones and Michael Douglas two years ago.

Friends actor Matt LeBlanc has announced that he is to marry his fiancée Melissa McKnight this month, while January sees the Oxfordshire wedding of British actress Emily Mortimer, (daughter of Rumpole creator and QC Sir John Mortimer) to her film-star boyfriend Alessandro Nivola. It all adds a whole new meaning to dreaming of a white Christmas.

When Nicole Kidman and Tom Cruise were married in the snows of Telluride, Colorado, 12 years ago, their choice of a winter wedding was as unusual as it was stylish --and partly dictated by their desire to keep the ceremony secret.

Since then, the floodgates have opened and we've been treated to a host of glamorous winter nuptials, including the Douglases' £1.6-million candlelit affair in November 2000, which had such a fairy-tale quality that one guest, the director Oliver Stone, was moved to gush that the bride 'looked like Snow White'.

This was followed in December by Madonna and Guy Ritchie's romantic Scottish wedding at Skibo Castle, complete with pipers, kilts and white wedding dress designed by Stella McCartney. Ashley Judd, Jennifer Ehle, Eric Clapton and Andie McDowell have all followed suit since then, tying the knot in the dead of winter.

But the fashion is by no means restricted to celebrities. Recently, I was invited to three weddings on the same day - last weekend.

'I'm doing five weddings on 28 December,' says an exhausted Kally Ellis, owner of McQueen's, the fashionable Clerkenwell florist that does Gwyneth Paltrow's flowers when she's in town.

'I had between three and six weddings every weekend in November. Altogether, there are more weddings in November and December than there have been in any other month this year. It's quite phenomenal. I've never known it like this.' According to Ellis, who supplies the deep crimson roses, berries and amaryllis that have become de rigueur at these events, winter brides tend to be thirty-something professionals 'with an awful lot of taste'.

It's a sign of the times that British Vogue ran a big feature on weddings in this month's issue. 'There are lots of smart London people getting married at Christmas this year,' confirms the equally overworked fashion designer Neil Cunningham, who designed wedding dresses for Ffion Hague and Darcey Bussell (as well as my own).

'It's a bold choice, a statement, and it's a lot more sophisticated than a summer wedding. And it's cheaper. You have to invest so much more in bored, hot people in the summer, and the weather during the past six or seven Junes has been terrible. At least in the winter you know it's going to rain, and you can have a ready-made romantic atmosphere with candles.' Indeed, in order to be legal, a marriage ceremony must be completed by 6pm, and it's only in winter that it is dark enough for candles by then.

There are sound practical reasons for choosing to marry in winter. For one thing, the venues haven't all been booked up. You can make your wedding cake and Christmas cake from the same recipe. And best of all, you can escape the weather afterwards by honeymooning somewhere hot.

But according to Brides magazine editor Sandra Boler (a winter bride herself), a Christmas wedding tends to be a purely emotional decision.

'A winter wedding does have a magical quality, but it's not a decision you take haphazardly,' she says. 'Only somebody who really likes winter will explore this option.'

This is certainly true for the writer Tilly Bagshawe, who married her boyfriend, Robin Nydes, last weekend, Snow Queen-style in a white fur cape. 'Christmas is one of the few things Robin and I have in common,' she jokes. 'He gets very excited about it and so do I. We had Christmas wreaths on the pew ends and sang carols because I'm not keen on hymns. And we filled the church with candles to make it look like Hogwarts.'

So passionate is she about this time of year that criminal barrister Genevieve Shepherd never considered any other options. 'Both my parents and my grandparents married in the winter,' she says. 'And I often think summer weddings fall a bit flat - you're so busy worrying about the weather. The forecast for my wedding day was torrential rain, hail, sleet and thunder, and all I thought was, "Oh good, how cosy.î Besides, people are always up for a party at Christmas, and this is the only time of year that I feel religious.'

The church was decorated with Christmas trees, guests sang 'In the Bleak Midwinter', and the inspiration for her glittering reception at the Mandarin Oriental was a combination of Versailles and The Nutcracker. 'I wanted to look like the Christmas fairy on top of the tree,' she admits. 'We did wonder about having a partridge in a pear tree as well, but we decided that might be a bit naff.'

Personally, I chose a Christmas wedding because I look terrible in white. Freed from my relatives' idea of a traditional summer ceremony, I could have the dress I wanted: opulent, slinky and scarlet, trimmed with dark mink. It necessitated panic-stricken phone calls to friends to make sure nobody was thinking of turning up in the same shade, but it was well worth the effort.

And unlike most white dresses, which rarely, if ever, see the light of day again, mine has proved to be a good investment. It's the ultimate party frock and has already received several outings this year (mostly at other people's winter weddings...).

But while there are many advantages to a Christmas wedding, there are pitfalls, too. 'The dress can be a problem,' warns Neil Cunningham. 'Brides think they have to wrap up - we're doing a lot of white mink this year - but then they pass out at the party because they are too hot in their dresses.' Beware of assuming, as one is advised for summer celebrations, that a third of those invited won't be able to come. 'Absolutely everyone said yes,' groans Tilly Bagshawe, 'because they were all at home for the Christmas period. The church was bursting at the seams.'

Timing is crucial. 'One of the biggest mistakes you can make is to have the wedding after New Year, like Kerry Katona did,' says Cunningham, who designed the former Atomic Kitten's crystal-studded gown for her wedding to Bryan McFadden of Westlife. 'I arrived at Slane Castle in County Meath and they were putting up extra Christmas decorations. It was so depressing. By the time you get to 7 January, everyone's sick to death of red and green and holly.'

And it's not just after Christmas that you have to be careful. I discovered, much to my astonishment, that it is possible to have a wedding that is just too Christmassy.

On my Big Day, as I stood in a darkened Soho House waiting to float up the aisle, I began to experience a nagging feeling of familiarity. Everything was just as I'd wanted it: the twinkly Christmas trees, the candles, the boughs of holly, the scent of pine, the carol singers. Only one thing was missing: somebody jolly, dressed in red velvet, trimmed with fur: 'Oh my God!' I hissed to my bridesmaid, 'please tell me I don't look like Father Christmas!'