Regional Winner Best Newcomer TWIA

As a recent bride-to-be myself, I was always impressed when I saw wedding suppliers displaying badges to say that they were a winner of TWIA. The pink and white swirls are unmistakable, and truly a badge of honour. I felt in safe hands when I was talking to a supplier wearing one of these badges. At the time, I had no idea that I would be working in the wedding industry myself and have the chance to try to win one of these prestigious awards!

I saw that the awards had opened, it was the talk of social media! Suppliers nervously asking each other if they had been nominated; if they had entered; what they thought of the whole process. I wasn’t going to enter, I thought to myself, what is the point? How could I possibly win? I know that I have an amazing product, but to have other people look at Wedition and scrutinise it, I’m not sure my nerves could cope. But then I thought, I have an amazing product. I have been told again and again how innovative it is, my customers tell me it has been “the best decision they made”, the “most fun part of the wedding planning”. I know Wedition is special, they know it is special. I will enter! So, I did. 

100% of all my eligible customers voted. This is one of the aspects of these awards that make them genuine and fair. In order to vote, you need to have been a customer and you need to have been a customer within the last year, this stops kind customers from repeatedly voting for the same company every year. “All judging is undertaken individually, remotely, independently and without consultation. This is to ensure that no single judge in any category has undue influence over any other judge. The result is the most rigorous judging process in the wedding industry.” (quote taken from TWIA website).

I found out that I had been shortlisted on 30th October 2017, cue much whooping and excitement from me!

I was then invited to go to the regional South Central awards ceremony, this was to be held at Lillibrooke Manor in Maidenhead. Some awards you can only win if your company is represented at the awards evening, of course all awards companies are businesses, they are there to make money like any other business, so I do understand that they are eager to generate ticket sales. These awards differ here though as you don’t have to be at the event, a winner will be a winner whether they turn up or not. Of course I went! I could not possibly miss out on the opportunity of visiting a venue I had not been to before and I certainly wanted to have the opportunity to meet fellow industry workers.

It was a wonderful evening, stunning canapés, a gin bar (I was driving so I could not sample), a dessert bar and the venue was gorgeous. I met so many wonderful people and the whole event was super. It wasn’t long until it was time to take our seats. I had been shortlisted for Special Touch and Best Newcomer. As someone so new to the industry I knew that I would need a miracle to win Special Touch but I felt like Best Newcomer was achievable, it was the last award to be given out.

The awards presenter, Damian Bailey, started to talk, I sat there, fingers crossed, eyes shut, in my head I said, “Wedition, Wedition, Wedition, Wedition” and then he said, “The winner, of the South Central wedding industry newcomer of the year for 2018 is……Wedition!”.

I screamed. I cried. I ran to the stage, complete with windmill arms, I practically picked the poor man up, I was absolutely blown away! We had done it! My customers, my suppliers, my web designers, my printers, I may be the name behind Wedition but there are a lot of people who bring it all together and our hard work had paid off. This was a huge achievement and a few weeks later I am still pinching myself!

Winning the regional category means that Wedition is now a national finalist in the Wedding Industry Awards, I will go up to London in January 2018 to find out who the winners are, the Farnham Castle team will be there too, they are a national finalist for Best Venue - Town or City and I am preferred supplier with them so we will be cheering each other on!

I now need to go and buy a pair of new shoes!