How the wedding sector has come together

Wedding businesses, please don't give up. Those 200,000+ deferred weddings are waiting for you on the other side and there are so many fighting so hard on your behalf for financial support now and a clear road map for 2021.

The wedding industry has come together like nothing before. 

Earlier in the year, 4000 businesses joined together under ABWB (Association of British Wedding Businesses). Their venue committee, led by Mark Dawson (Brookfield Barn) and Hamish Shephard (Hedsor House and Bridebook) along with Siobhan Craven-Robins, Hazel Parsons and Tracey Butterworth of NAWP (National Association of Wedding Professionals) represented the industry in conversations with the government.

Annabel Beeforth (Love My Dress) and Nina Beer (Occasion Queens) have been supporting businesses and brides through Facebook groups since March. We joined them and Tamryn Settle (Love My Dress), along with Sarah Haywood (Sarah Haywood Events), Rugie Wurie (Mrs Wedding Planner), LaToya Patel (SW Events) and Jessie Westwood (Studio Sorores) to ensure that our entire, diverse industry would be represented in discussions with government and also to add volume and support to their messaging.

The group subsequently created #WhatAboutWeddings to raise awareness of relevant issues through positive media, such as the Just One Day and Hey Rishi! campaigns.

Thanks to the efforts of Sarah Haywood and Richard Eagleton (McQueens Flowers), WhatAboutWeddings has now joined forces with #WeMakeEvents and #OneIndustryOneVoice to share information and resources for political campaigning. Jessie (Studio Sorores), Annabel and Tamryn (Love My Dress) will take #WhatAboutWeddings forward within the events campaign, representing the industry and supporting those businesses that most need financial and emotional support.

Atul Lakhani (Asian Wedding Association UK) and Nusrat Khan (Asian Wedding Association) are amongst those ensuring that Hindu, Sikh and Muslim weddings, involving much larger numbers and more complex ceremonies, are represented in discussions. 

The WVSG (Wedding Venue Support Group) and Guides for Brides have been addressing the challenges presented by the CMA to find a route forward with Insurers, as well as preventing cancellations (through Facebook live videos) and protecting businesses, after the mis-leading CMA guidance in April and September gave insurers a way to avoid paying claims and appeared to encourage couples to cancel, not postpone.

Individual venues - so sorry not to mention you all - including Amaris Hospitality, Clevedon Hall, Country House Wedding Venues, South Farm, Braxted Park are working on creative, safe ways to open, drawing on knowledge from the events industry including from MIA, Paul Gaze, HAE, Stuart Slaughter, Catering Hire and UK Hospitality, while we collaborate with others on a WeddingSafe industry standard incorporating the various ideas that might be required for a road map.

Emma Hardcastle and Jade Hedley (Hostology) are providing an effective, collaborative forum for collating and sharing information amongst many of those committed to finding solutions. 

Thousands of businesses have joined zoom discussions, completed questionnaires, written to their MPs and signed Natalie Lovett's (WhiteWed) letter to Robert Buckland asking for financial support. Many more have supported each other on social media by sharing messages and offering advice. 

I am sorry not to mention and thank you all individually, as the work everyone is doing is so important. Equally, I am aware that most don't want thanks or credit, you just want businesses to survive and weddings to return, and will do all you can to help make that happen.

Remember, 200,000 postponed couples are behind us all in getting through to the other side and will be joined by tens of thousands of newly engaged couples over the next few months.

We will each find our way to the other side, individually and collectively. You are not alone in this. Our team may be slightly depleted, but we are here 7 days a week until we ALL get through this and weddings, as we remembered them, can return.