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The cover of today's Radio Times features a drawing of the royal wedding carriage by seven-year-old London schoolgirl Darcey Gurner, winner of the magazine's royal wedding picture competition.

The picture was chosen from over 10, 500 entries and was praised by the judges for its charm and beauty, with Sir Peter Blake describing it as "a thoroughly memorable image."

The competition invited children of all ages to create a magazine cover that celebrated the forthcoming wedding of Prince William and Catherine Middleton.

Describing her winning picture, Darcey Gurner said: "It took a long time to draw because I had to practise doing the carriage in pencil and my mum showed me how to draw block figures. One day I would like to get married in a carriage and live happily ever after like William and Kate. I would also like to ask them a question: what will your baby’s name be?"

Runners-up in the other age categories are Aisha Asghar, age 10, from South Lanarkshire and Phoebe Edwards, age 13, from Yorkshire. A further 24 children are highly commended and all of their pictures appear inside this week's Radio Times' souvenir Royal Wedding Issue.

Describing the thousands of entries, Radio Times' art director, Shem Law, said: "For the most part, you could tell the difference between boys' entries and girls' entries with boys going 'off brief'. We had several Doctor Whos and a couple of wrestlers. And some people thought Westminster Abbey wasn't grand enough for the wedding and relocated it to Downton Abbey instead!"

The winning entry was chosen by an esteemed panel of judges: artist Sir Peter Blake; The Secretary of State for Education, Rt Hon Michael Gove MP; Children's Laureate Anthony Browne; Blue Peter presenter Helen Skelton; Radio Times Art Director, Shem Law and Radio Times Editor, Ben Preston.

There were three age categories within the competition: under 8s, 9-12s and 13-18s.

NOTES TO EDITORS

As part of the competition, 21,000 primary schools and 5,500 secondary schools across the UK were being sent specially devised teaching notes for Key Stages 1, 2 and 3, advising teachers how to incorporate the competition into their lesson plans.

Sarah Williams-Robbins