This month marks the end of an era for me, in more ways than one. Not only am I turning 30 at the beginning of June, but I'm also wrapping up my second career as a professional bridesmaid/maid of honour (I know I should really be a ‘matron of honour’ as I'm married, but I’d like to avoid any association to the word ‘matron’ this close to my 30th birthday).

Being a bridesmaid is an honour, not only do you get to spend the morning with the bride herself, but you get to enjoy the entire day with the happy couple, helping to make it as special as possible for them both. Since July 2011 I have had the pleasure and the privilege of being part of four wonderful weddings. First was my brother’s wedding to my now sister-in-law Faye, I was delighted when they asked me to share their day with them and I especially enjoyed getting to know Faye’s sister Rachel during the build-up and on the day itself. Second was my husband’s brother’s wedding to the lovely Lucy (who has popped up more than once in my posts and videos), a truly spectacular day and an equally brilliant party. This was followed by my friend from school’s wedding, at which I was delighted to take up the role of maid of honour. This was my first winter wedding and it was full of snowflakes and sparkles, which suited the bride perfectly. Last, but by no means least was my oldest friend Emma’s wedding on the Saturday just past. The weather was a concern, but we needn't have worried, the sun came out from behind a cloud and provided the perfect accompaniment to their gorgeous church wedding.

For the time being at least, that is my short-lived bridesmaid career over. From planning hilarious hen weekend activities (singing on the pier in Brighton, overflowing a hot tub and drinking pints of wine in a field…) to helping ensure that the wedding day runs as smoothly as possible (make-up touch ups, dress bustling and general ferrying), being a bridesmaid may not be a challenging occupation, but it certainly requires both passion and diligence.

Since this is predominately a fashion website, it would be wrong not to acknowledge the fabulous dresses that I've worn over the past two years. All from the high-street and all equally lovely. First was a dress from L.K. Bennett for my brother and sister-in-law’s wedding, bought in their Christmas sale it was a veritable bargain. Next up was the first of my turquoise dresses, this one was from Phase Eight and on top of being wonderfully comfortable, it was surprisingly resilient to creases (always helpful when travelling any distance for a wedding). My second turquoise dress was found rather unexpectedly while browsing through the rails of Marks & Spencer with the bride-to-be. Yet another beautiful dress costing a fraction of the price that you might pay at a specialist bridesmaid dress store. The latest addition to my collection is another sale bargain discovered by the bride in House of Fraser's evening dress range. A wonderfully elegant empire line dress in a delicate sage green colour.

I've been very blessed to know four wonderful brides that have all chosen beautiful dresses for me to wear and I hope I have proved equal to the task of being their bridesmaids. Thank you to Faye, Lucy, Claire and Emma for letting me be a part of some truly extraordinary occasions. Here's wishing each of you your happily ever after.

I was sat at my desk at work last week when an email popped into my inbox entitled ‘Marks & Spencer Valentine’s Challenge’, instantly intrigued I opened it up to see what it involved. M&S had decided to challenge 10 bloggers to a ‘Secret Santa’ style project to celebrate Valentine’s Day. As they put it “with Valentine’s Day taking place next week we want to encourage all the girls out there to embrace the day, whether single or in a relationship. After all, the day is about feeling special, right?”. I completely agree and regardless of the fact that I could be celebrating with my husband I’ll actually be spending Thursday evening with my entire family in London, something I’m very much looking forward to!

For this challenge M&S paired up 10 bloggers and asked each of us to select an M&S dress for our secret gift receiver, up to a £50 value. Then, once we’d chosen they posted each of us our surprise dress to wear out on Valentine’s Day. The idea behind this challenge was to create a bit of girl power over Valentine’s and get us ladies trying something new which could make us feel great – what a marvellous idea!

I received the name and blog address of my secret partner on Friday and subsequently spent most of Friday evening browsing through their site (this brought back memories of my verging-on-stalker territory whilst participating in the MSM Christmas challenge). Thankfully my chosen blogger (whose name I’m not yet allowed to reveal) has outfit posts aplenty on her site, which helped make my life much easier when choosing a dress for her. She described her style as ‘versatile’ which is very much the case; bold colours, prints and textures abound in her previous outfit posts.

Having browsed through the best part of a year’s worth of outfit posts (my Friday nights are so rock‘n’roll) I carefully selected the ones I liked best. All of these featured a skater style dress with a full skirt, which, in my-ever-so-humble opinion she totally rocks. Based on that style I pulled up the M&S website and browsed through the vast collection of dresses until I came across ‘the one’. 

‘The one’ as it turned out was the floral embroidered skater dress. A beautiful deep indigo hue with cutwork detailing around the neckline and a flattering full skirt. I really hope my secret blogger likes my choice, I definitely think it will suit her and the subtle colour will also give her the opportunity to build accessories into the look. I’m really excited to see how she styles it!

I’ve yet to receive my Valentine’s dress, it should arrive this afternoon, so keep an eye on my Twitter and Instagram feeds for updates. I’ll be taking outfit photos at the weekend and in my next post I’ll also be able to reveal who my secret blogger is...!

I was originally going to title this post ‘A Money Supermarket Christmas’, but worried that it would be misinterpreted to suggest that I opted to buy people car insurance as gifts this year. This post is actually the second in my #MSMSecretSanta series and I finally get to share with you the lovely gifts I received from 'The Girl About Town', aka Sarah.

I resisted opening them until Christmas day (lord knows how) which meant I had to explain the #MSMSecretSanta concept to family members at least three times, but nevertheless, the wait proved more than worthwhile. I was delighted to open the first gift to find a beautiful illustration of me (cue expanding ego) commissioned by Sarah and drawn by the talented Jaymie O'Callaghan. A wonderfully unique gift idea and something that I’ll treasure as a testament to my blogging days long after I've hung up my SLR. The second gift was the perfect accompaniment to the Christmas day festivities; Charbonnel et Walker's Handbag & Heel's chocolates (#NomNomNom). Needless to say they didn't last very long.

I can also now reveal the gift that I chose for Sarah and just as importantly, the gift I chose for her cat Hugo. As mentioned in my first post, I spent a fair amount of time reading through her blog, studying her Twitter feed and generally being as nosey as possible in the hope that I’d stumble across a good idea. A few days in I noticed a couple of tweets mentioning her new iPhone 5 and her struggle to find a suitable case for it. I knew Audrey Hepburn was one of her style icons, that she liked cats (obvs) and appreciated illustrations; judging by the lovely depictions on her site (also drawn by Jaymie). So when I came across an iPhone 5 cover that included all of the above I couldn't believe my luck.

Once I'd ordered the iPhone case I then set about researching a gift for Hugo. This involved a trip to Pets At Home; where I proceeded to wander the aisles aimlessly, looking like a complete moron plonker (I'm not responsible enough to own pets… not even fish). After finally arriving at the cat section, I spent another fifteen minutes looking at the insurmountable stack of cat-related festive gifts. You wouldn't believe the choice, it was far harder choosing something for Hugo than it was for Sarah. It took me the best part of my lunch hour to finally make a selection, but I was pleased with my ultimate choice; a ‘Catmess’ stocking full of everything a cat could dream of at Christmas.

After merrily posting everything I happened to be browsing Sarah’s Instagram feed when I came across a picture she’d uploaded (and I’d previously missed) of her new Audrey Hepburn iPhone case… arghhhhh! Thankfully the one I chose was slightly different and she has since assured me that she does like the one I bought her regardless - phew!

Enough rambling from me, just time to say a quick thank you to Sarah for my lovely gifts and to MoneySupermarket for organising this fun and inventive competition! I hope everyone had a lovely Christmas and I will see you again in 2013!

As one challenge ends, another begins... today I'm excited to reveal the details of my Moneysupermarket.com Secret Santa Challenge and who I've been partnered with!

For those of you who haven’t seen various discussions with the tag #MSMSecretSanta whizzing by on Twitter I’ll give you a quick bit of background information. Back in November I was contacted by the rather lovely Ben from Moneysupermarket.com to ask whether I’d like to get involved with their Secret Santa campaign. The challenge was simple; they would give each participating blogger £25 to buy a Secret Santa present for a fellow blogger. The pairings would be entirely random, organised by MoneySupermarket.com to help introduce you to new bloggers and challenge you to buy a gift for someone you've never met.

So how do you go about choosing a gift for someone you've never met before?! Well if they’re a prolific blogger you can easily employ the power of the ‘cyberstalk’. Follow them on Twitter, find them on Facebook, subscribe to their blog and generally learn as much about them as you can. I have spent the last week engrossed in oodles of blog posts and hundreds of tweets trying to establish likes/dislikes of my chosen blogger and think of a great Secret Santa gift idea.

Now while I'm not allowed to give away any details about the gift/gifts that I have purchased, I am allowed to reveal who I've been purchasing them for. So here goes... drum roll please... I have been partnered with the fabulous Sarah, who writes a blog called ‘The Girl About Town’. Over the past week I feel I've got to know Sarah quite well (albeit without her knowledge), she loves fashion and photography, has a cat called Hugo and owns a vast collection of lipsticks. Hey Sarah!

This week I will be wrapping and packaging my Secret Santa gift ready to post to Sarah. Once she receives it she will write a blog post about how much she loves or hates it (fingers crossed it won’t be the latter!), so keep an eye on her blog to find out what I chose. I’ll be doing the same when I receive my own gift, I've yet to find out who my Secret Santa is, so I'm excited to see who has been ‘cyberstalking’ me.

After two luxury holidays in two years (honeymoon and Vegas for a 30th birthday celebration), my husband and I decided that a short staycation was the order of the day this year. So this is where you currently find me.

The trip involves a stop at Bicester Village - I cannot tell you how excited I am to be visiting Bicester. I've wanted to go for quite some time and I'm delighted to have finally organised a trip. Watch this space for updates on what I bought and how my husband coped being dragged along!

After a day at Bicester we're heading to the Heythrop Hotel in nearby Chipping Norton. Followed by a long drive to Chester, stopping off in Birmingham en route. A day at Chester Zoo has been pencilled in followed by two final days spent at the seaside in North Wales (brrrrr!).

I can't wait to spend a few days away from my laptop and work, although I won't be detaching myself completely... Twitter anyone?! Follow me to see what I'm up to @theitguide and I'll be back online 'properly' on Monday.