‘Life is good’ for Emily Barker, who, two years on from winning Dancing With The Stars, is ready for her next big project: planning a wedding! The former professional dancer, who now runs a fitness business from the UK, announced her long-time love, Olly, had popped the question in June. Today's top videos ‘I’m absolutely […]
‘Life is good’ for Emily Barker, who, two years on from winning Dancing With The Stars, is ready for her next big project: planning a wedding!
The former professional dancer, who now runs a fitness business from the UK, announced her long-time love, Olly, had popped the question in June.
‘I’m absolutely loving life,’ Emily told EVOKE. ‘It’s the most exciting time, and we would love to do an Irish wedding; our hearts are definitely in Ireland.’
Even before Olly got down on one knee, Emily knew they’d be planning an Irish wedding, saying: ‘We 100 per cent knew [we wanted an Irish wedding].
'When we discussed previously wanting to get married, it was always a deal breaker that it had to be in Ireland.
‘Obviously, I lived in Ireland for six years whilst I was on Dancing with the Stars, and then Olly is from my hometown in Nottingham, but it turns out his whole dad's side of the family is from Kildare.
‘It's so crazy we have that connection. Even now we'll come back to Ireland and stay with Ollie's Irish family in Kildare. We’ve just spent so much time in Ireland that our hearts are definitely there.'
Wedding planning is now in full swing, with Emily and Olly having a venue scouting trip planned for the end of August, and it’s clear that ‘type A bride’ Emily is all over their to-do list.
She said: ‘We’re going down to Cork in August to look at venues and we’ve got venues in Wicklow, and some in Kildare; we're just going to try and get a feel for as much as we can.
While the exact venue is still up for debate, Emily and Ollie have decided on one very important thing - their wedding date - which will, hopefully, be New Year’s Eve 2027.
As for why they’ve their hearts set on a New Year’s Eve wedding, Emily said: ‘The weather thing was scaring me a little bit with Ireland; if it was going to be in the summer I was thinking “oh gosh, what if it rains and then I've got a whole outdoor wedding planned?”
‘So going with New Year's Eve at least we know what we're going to get, so we know we're going to have cosy Christmas vibes and be all festive.’
Emily’s even given her pals a heads-up about the date, saying: ‘Because it's only 18 months away, I’ve dropped a message to a few of the guys I was super close to on Dancing With The Stars, just to keep the date free.
‘I think it should work OK for the guys that are still that are still on the show because they get Christmas and New Year off. It'll be so nice to catch up with them, and then they can all get ready and back into dancing.’
Emily added with a laugh: ‘I'm such a type A bride, I was just immediately planning [after getting engaged]. I know what I want, I know how I want everything to be, and then Olly just kind of has to sign it off.
‘He's so laid back, I think we'd just be doing it in my mum and dad's back garden if it was up to him, but for me, I like to have the prep, and I'm just a very organised person.
‘Obviously I ran my fitness business, and I've held so many really big fitness retreats in Ireland over the years that I'm just used to getting stuck in and making a plan.’
Talking of, Emily is hoping to throw herself back into her fitness in the lead-up to the wedding, and give her business MadHotFit another push.
‘We scaled it back a little bit after the move to Ireland [where Emily and Olly lived on an island for several months], but we still have loads of clients with us.
'Moving forward, I would really love to pick up a little momentum with it again towards the wedding because I think, for myself as well, I want that accountability to push towards my own fitness challenge.
‘I’ll have to find the balance, you still want to enjoy the build up and look like yourself on the day, but for me I know if I haven't worked hard I won't feel my 100 per cent best self.’
As for dancing, that chapter of Emily’s life is closed for now, well, apart from when she gets to organising her first dance with Ollie, whom she says is a ‘surprisingly good dancer’
Emily said: ‘I completely closed the chapter after winning [Dancing With The Stars] with Carl; I feel like I finished on such a high.
'I never say never, but I'm very much one of those people that it just feels like life has so much to offer and I think there's so many things I can try.
‘It was the most amazing time of my life, but it was also my whole life, so I really didn't have anything outside of dancing for probably a good 10 years of my life.
‘I missed out on every family occasion and all my own birthdays, so I think it was the perfect time for me to be able to really take a step back and focus on just building more of like a future at home and building the business.'
