If you want your guests to remember your wedding as the best they’ve ever been to, I recommend you hire a magician. Magic fills in all those awkward gaps in the proceedings and gets everyone involved and talking to each other.

The excitement and amazement generated by seeing the impossible happen right there, within touching distance, enhances the atmosphere of any wedding day.

My own wedding had the potential for being a bit strained. Our families had never got on particularly well and we were apprehensive as to how the day might go. The magician we hired was fantastic. Not only did he perform miracles of magic, he gave our two mums such a surprise that they both screamed, then laughed together, and we could see the tension between them draining away.

At my sister’s wedding, the magician did a very romantic trick. He asked Stephanie and her new husband each to pick a card and to sign their name on it. Then he cast a spell over the pack and their two cards became one - a card with two faces, with her name on one side and his on the other. They keep this in a revolving photo frame on their mantelpiece, as a symbol of their union.

My husband doesn’t like dancing and would have felt very left out, at one wedding we went to, had it not been for the magician. While I was boogying away with the majority of the guests, Dan saw a red-hot 10 pence piece burn through a pack of cards. The magician had to repeat that trick when I came back to the table!

The venue for my cousin’s wedding reception had made a mistake somewhere and the meal was a couple of hours later than it should have been. Luckily, they had booked a magician (on my recommendation!) and we were all so engrossed in watching the magic that the time flew by.

The magician at our wedding also did a stint with the children, which they loved. He wasn’t a children’s entertainer as such but he was happy to show them some magic and it made an exciting change for them, between videos and party games.

When booking your magician, don’t just go for the cheapest. You don’t want to end up with someone’s Uncle Derek who knows a few tricks. You want a smooth, sophisticated magician who will get on well with everybody and perform the sort of magic that will make people gasp, not groan. Although there are many capable magicians who are not in it, membership of The Magic Circle is a good indication of a magician’s skill.