How does a Welsh shopgirl get to marry The Hoff?
And why is Hayley, 36, worried the Baywatch star is too handsome for her even though (at 63) he’s as old as her dad
somewhat unconventional in the sense that it took place in front of a cameraman from Hello! magazine, whom David had invited to film the event, disguising his intentions from Hayley by telling her the snapper’s presence was just for an anniversary shoot.
‘He turned his back to me and suddenly produced this ring,’ Hayley explains. ‘Tears were streaming down his face. I cried non-stop for five minutes before saying yes. He’s such an old-fashioned romantic.
‘I couldn’t believe all these people were watching — but I’m glad we have pictures of that moment.’
They want to wait two or three years before the wedding — as Hayley says she wants to ‘enjoy being engaged for a while’ — but she has already picked her dress.
‘I’ve had it on my phone for a year’, she says. ‘It’s A-line, very traditional.’
She also wants the venue to be somewhere in Italy by the sea. ‘I picture it outdoors, with everyone sitting on pretty white chairs and us saying our vows under a little arch. When David and I get our photographs taken, they’ll all go into a field and be served Champagne — and then the reception will be in ruins or a castle.’
BuT don’t expect an all-Hollywood guest list: despite David’s Californian home adjoining that of music legend Stevie Wonder and reality stars the Kardashians, Hayley says they don’t spend all their time socialising with stars.
‘We have lots of ordinary, noncelebrity friends, too,’ she insists. ‘The guest list is still a work in progress, but we want to have people from all parts of our lives.’
Their little family isn’t going to get any bigger, either: Hayley says she simply ‘ doesn’t feel maternal’ and wants no children of her own. ‘I haven’t got that urge,’ she says.
‘If I really wanted children, I know David would say yes — but I don’t. It’s a lifelong commitment. Although it would be nice to have a mini David... deep down I don’t want that. I don’t know if that’s selfish.’
She trails off and tears fill her eyes. ‘I have this gorgeous nephew I adore and that’s enough for me. Maybe, in the future, if I wish I’d had a kid, I could adopt. But just now I’m not ready.
‘I’d have to think of the baby all the time, and I wouldn’t have as much time for David.’
It’s clear she feels indebted to him, for whisking her away from her humdrum life in the Valleys to a fantasy world of jet-setting and red carpets. She relishes every day with a girlish enthusiasm that, from afar, might seem superficial, but up close is genuinely endearing.
Try as she might to fall in love with LA, however, Hayley’s heart remains in Wales. ‘I miss little things like my mum’s Sunday dinners, shopping in Marks & Spencer, potato waffles and Batchelors Super Noodles.
‘I get jealous when I see all my friends on a night out in Cardiff, or getting together in a pub to watch the rugby.’
So could this girl from the Valleys ever convince Mr Hollywood himself to move to Wales? ‘David loves the uK,’ she says, ‘but he can’t stand the weather. He needs sunshine to make him happy.’
She hopes, one day, they can have two houses — one in California and the other in the countryside outside Bath, where Hayley dreams of opening her own tea shop.
If the prospect of The Hoff serving tea in rural Somerset sounds a little too surreal, to Hayley it would be a dream come true. ‘He’s not the character you see on TV,’ she says.
‘I can deal with people saying mean things about me, but when people say stuff about him, I get so angry.
‘They don’t know him like I do. To me, he’s not The Hoff. He’s just David, my fiance.’