Behind the scenes of the Wedding Industry Awards with Damian Bailey

Let's get going with today's episode. Today, I'm chatting with Damien Bailey. He's a wedding photographer and the founder of the Wedding Industry Awards here in the UK. Now in its 13th year, the annual awards celebrate excellence in the wedding industry, both regionally and nationally. Today, I'm going to peel back the curtain and hear more from Damien about how these awards are run and whether your business could benefit from being part of it. Damien, welcome to the podcast.

So I've been around the block and I realized When you find yourself in this industry, you sort of look around and go, this is fantastic. I get to go do my hobby for a living. I go to some amazing parties in beautiful places with people who are all dressed up and ready to party. Don't tell everyone, because everyone will want to do it. So, I've, I've I feel like I have not worked a day as I've been a photographer. So yeah, I love it.

And through my experience of wedding photography, actually I entered an award similar to Twitter back in 2007, which I won wedding photographer of the year and business took off. I think I understood how to use it. I doubled my prices and I doubled my bookings in that following year. And I've never looked back really. Those awards disappeared. And I said to Anna, my wife, who both of us are from an event management background.

I said, look, that was amazing for me, but our industry doesn't have a proper awards. We should do one. How hard can it be? Famous last words. And here we are 13 years later.

I see every aspect of the wedding, from hair and makeup at the beginning of the day, right through to bands and DJs at the end. My job, I am paid to look at stuff that's going on at weddings. So, I think it's really important for me to do that, and until someone doesn't want me to shoot their wedding anymore, I'll keep doing it.

Oh God, he must be really old if he's done a thousand weddings. So I'll quietly raise a glass this end. Will I get to 2000? I doubt it. It's taken me 20 years to get to a thousand, but it's a nice milestone. And not many will get there these days because of the proliferation of wedding photographers all over the country. It's hard to do the volume of weddings that I used to do that got me that volume. So yeah, I'm pretty, pretty pleased with it, but I'm glad I'm not doing 80 or 90 a year now.

That would be a bridge too far for me.

I enjoyed re engaging with my couples because I had to get them to vote for me, just like we do on Twitter. And hearing that feed, seeing that feedback at the end of the awards, which we also do with Twitter was. wonderful because it's very different to getting a thank you card. They're, they are, they were actively trying to help me win something. So they were much more detailed and effusive in, in their comments. So that was lovely.

So when I was made a finalist and we went to the event, I remember it so clearly, it's given me goosebumps actually, just thinking about it. I went, Anna and I went and that feeling of standing there waiting to hear if my name would be read out was Both exciting and nerve wracking. And back in, but remember this is pre social media pretty much. So there's no, none of that to worry about. It was just, God that makes me, that does date me to be fair.

But It was a wonderful feeling to hear your name read out as the winner just went absolutely mental. It was, it was so, it was so fantastic. It felt like such a great pat on the back and a real boost towards where I wanted to try and take the business. Now, it's not going to get me there on its own. You have to use that and you have to use and market your success in something like that, which I think I understood and which I did.

And as I say, never look back, but that feeling Both the enjoyment of going through the process of looking at my business, because I had to answer a series of questions, be introspective, which so is hard to do when you run your own business. That whole process right through to standing in that room and hearing my name read out was wonderful, not to mention the, the benefit it had to my business afterwards.

So yeah that that sits, when I'm at our events and I'm standing on stage, I want people to feel that excitement and that joy at our events too. And I think they do. They're fairly raucous affairs and part of that is the, is the joy.

The person behind a business because people can look at the wedding industry awards or Twitter as you call them and think it's this big corporation. It's a big business trying to run this thing or trying to take money from wedding suppliers. But actually a lot of people probably don't know that it's you behind it.

Someone in the wedding industry themselves and that you are a man running a business who loves the wedding industry and love the fact that he won an award and therefore started his own award. And I think Yeah. That's commendable. It's not an easy job to do what you've done and you're in your 13th year. How have things evolved since that first one that you did right up until present day?

So regional and national, that then led to, to begin with, we didn't have any awards events. We'd have a national, but we didn't have regionals. So people would find out in the queue of, You know, Sainsbury's, you know, obviously other supermarkets are available, but people would find that in the queue somewhere that they won an award. And it sort of struck us that that wasn't good enough, that we weren't, that we could have regional events too.

So I, Anna who runs our events said, you know, she was merrily just doing one event a year and I said, we're gonna do nine events next year. We're gonna have eight regional events and won national. And she went, yeah, great. And then, and wanted to throttle me I think when the, when the time came. But that is. That is the biggest change. Those regional events sit at the very heart of what we do. There are, it's full on, we do eight events in three weeks.

In fact, this year, it's going to be more like 10 or 11 events because we've got some new regions, which we may come to later. Getting out there and being able to look people in the eye and put a face to a name and to say hello. People's faces when they say, Oh, it's your Damien. Yeah, well, I'm there on the door saying hi to everyone, checking them off the list. And then I'm on the stage doing the presentation and then I'm available afterwards to answer questions and whatever. I think people.

want to see that and they like to see that. We love that whole process and the community that we've created purely by chance. That was never something that was on our list of things to do. People enter the awards to try to become a finalist so they can come to our events. So that they can be in that community. It is incredibly supportive. I'm a big fan of community over competition and you see it in that room. Never.

When you go to a business event, which is effectively what it is, where there is more joy and support. And I know that people, you know, the industry runs on networks on recommended recommendations. If you can be in that room and make those connections with people, I don't like the networking word. It's a bit of a dirty word these days, but if you can make. those connections, connect with people within your category, outside your category. It, it's only going to be good for business.

And the people that do best out of our awards are the people who do that best who, who who connect rather than compete. So that's the first thing. If I'm not waffling on too much, the judging panels, the other thing, when we first started, we had a judging panel of about 12 and we judged. We all got together in a room and we judged every category for the national awards.

It was really difficult because obviously we didn't have expertise across all the categories and, and it struck me that that is not how you do it. Now that's how most other so called awards do it, but it's not right. So we set about having a, creating a panel of specific experts for each category. It's 27 categories. We have 140 plus judges on the panel now constantly evolving, although I'm proud to say that we have a very low dropout rate. So the judges get a lot out of it, I think.

So having that expertise on the panel on specific for specific categories is key. If you're a hairstylist, you need to have recognized, reputable, experienced hairstylist on the judging panel because they'll understand you and they'll understand your business. So those two things are the main way it's changed, but otherwise client voting, expert judging, great awards events, offering value at every stage of the competition from entry right through to national winner.

That's always been at the heart of what we do trying to help couples make, find the right. the best supplies for their weddings is the end game and recognizing all those, those brilliant businesses out there.

Now I want to dive a little bit deeper and go a little bit into the process of awards. Now, anyone that listens to my podcast or has worked with me, heard me on stage, knows that sometimes I can be a little bit skeptical about some awards, because as you will know yourself, Not all awards are created equal.

So therefore awards can get a bad reputation because you have really great awards with really reputable things, but then you have other awards where we always have a joke in my membership community sometimes where someone will get an email and they're a wedding photographer and it says, congratulations, you've been shortlisted for wedding hairdresser of the year. You know, you've, you've seen it all before. And we laugh when we joke about it. But not all awards are created equal. I know that.

I've been on judging panels myself. I am on judging panels for awards, and I see the hard work that goes on behind the scenes. So for the process of transparency on this podcast, I want to go through your rewards. Let's talk about it in detail so that people are totally clear about how it works, how it operates, and we can talk about the benefits and how people can use it to their advantage. So let's start with Right at the beginning, entry.

So if someone's thinking about entering an award, or entering your award specifically, now is the time to be doing it because entry is open for the next award. What does that actually look like in terms of saying, yeah, I want to enter this award? What do they have to do?

There is an entry fee for entering the Wedding Industry Awards. It still amazes me a little bit that People think it should be free. People say, Oh, you're paying for an award. No, you're not. You're paying to enter a rigorous competition. That is a full time job, pretty much for two people and a part time job for four others. So in like any business, we are offering a product and a service that is valuable and has value. So there's an entry fee. Let's just leave it there for now.

You pay the entry fee, you then go on to choose your category and complete a little bit more of your profile, click on complete, you're entered the awards. You'll get a confirmation email as such, and away you go. You'll then go into an email stream, automated email stream, that will feed you once a week, an email with a useful piece, thing, something to think about to do with your entry.

So, here's what you need to do now, here's how to create your directory listing, which we give you for free, and and the directory's only for businesses that have entered or been a finalist or won TWIA. It's a very attractive prospect to a bride or groom. There's all sorts of other things.

You need to upload photographs, upload videos if you like, answer some category specific questions about your business as well, all of which you can dip in and out of before voting closes on the 30th of September. The, and all the time you can see you have a you can be getting your votes in. Client voted, only your wedding couples who got married between the 2nd of October 2023 and the 30th of September 2024 can vote for you in the current awards.

One vote per couple and only after their wedding. There's a couple of exceptions to that, like stationary, which is all provided before the wedding, but generally we think you should have to be at your wedding and have your hair and makeup done on the wedding day, or have the photographs taken and see the photographs afterwards in order for someone to vote for you effectively. So there's a link. Which each entrance given specific to them, they send that web link to their voters.

They vote for them. Voting is not just a I vote for X, Y, Z. It's a little bit more in depth than that funnily enough. We ask each voter to vote to score their wedding supplier out of 10 in seven different category specific criteria. They then leave a comment. general comment that the judges will see, and then they leave what we call a constructive criticism comment, if they want to, that the judges don't see.

What we want is to try to get some pointers for businesses that can help them improve and grow and develop, and the clients are the best people to give that. Now, clients don't like to often give that because it seems like they're being critical. They love their wedding supplies in general and they vote very strongly and they leave lovely comments. But we really do try to push those constructive criticism comments because we know how helpful they can be.

I know several businesses who said to me that, that, They have made my definitive changes to their business because of the feedback they've got from voters and Twitter. And we give, sorry, I should have mentioned we give all that voter feedback to the entrant at the end of the awards. So you're not just paying for an award. You're not doing that at all. You're paying to enter a competition that has recognized has value and we're giving you stuff that you wouldn't normally get as well.

So that's the, that's the entry process and that. You can dip in and out of that. See, once you've entered, you can dip in and out of answering the questions, uploading photos, videos, etc. Right up until voting closes. When voting closes on the 30th of September at 5pm, that's when the judging process starts. So it doesn't really matter when you enter. That's another thing. Oh, what's the, there's no point entering. Oh, I'm too late. You know, I'll never win.

Well, we, there's a, several people, several regional winners, last year, entered in the final week, one entered on the final day. And she said to me, I never thought I'd get anywhere because I had to do the final day. And here I am. So, you know, I would say, well, we've worked it out about 30 percent of entries come in the final two weeks, and about 40 percent of the 25, 000 votes will receive come in the final two weeks. So it's human nature to respond to a deadline.

We appreciate that wedding businesses do different number of weddings for all sorts of reasons. I know some that don't work on their birthday. I know some that don't work on their anniversary, some limited to 20 year to a year to ensure they are giving their couples optimum service and product. So to run a credible awards. We have to accommodate that into the process.

So how we do it is when people enter and they get their clients to vote for them, they give, they get that score out of 70, remember out of 10 in seven criteria, they get a score out of 70 for each voter. We, we then calculate the average, their average voter score. So their total score divided by the total number of votes gives them an average. And we use that average score during the judging process.

So, some people will say, Oh, but if you have more voters, you're going to have a higher average. Well, no, not necessarily. It depends on how well they score you. So, what that average does, as best we can, is remove the need to have lots of votes. It is not a most votes wins awards. That is pointless. Just because someone has more weddings than you, doesn't mean they're better. Far from it. So we accommodate that.

So what I would say to people with, who are perhaps new businesses, who've got a handful of weddings that they've done within the time voting timeframe, think TWIA as you just use it in whatever way you need to, to raise your profile and grow bookings and grow. So grow inquiries and grow bookings to turn 10 next year. It is a really good way to boost and help your marketing. It's not gonna do it on its own.

It, it, it's, people aren't gonna book you just because you've went to an awards, but it gives them another reason. It's differentiation and I and I, and it is powerful. It works. So I would think of as a relative newcomer or someone with a small number of votes. Do it, go for it and help and use it to help that grow. One other thing we do, I should mention, is we, we do take into account the proportion of couples that vote.

So if, as an example, if a photographer has 20 couples 20 voters and 20 vote, we see that as better than if someone else has 20 and 10 vote. So we expect and want to see, or the judges want to see, a good engagement with couples that it's indicative of couples being happy with Products and service if they're happy to get back in touch and to vote. So that proportion is taken into account.

It's not the be all and end all, but because obviously venues will be doing some venues will do 200 plus weddings a year. It's unlikely they're going to get 200 votes, but. It shows an engagement with the awards process, it shows an engagement with couples, so the proportion of those votes is taken into account by the judges.

But it doesn't matter if you've got five, you need to have at least one, and I would probably suggest at least two but, but you then don't expect to win, but use Twia to help your business in whatever way you want to help it. That's how I would say it.

We get 25,000 votes. We can't check every single one, but every year I, through that process, I find a handful of people who fabricated votes and remove them from the competition. So it, it, we are, we try, we, we do our best to make sure that, that, that everything's above board. I think most people are decent and work really hard to make sure the right people are voting. As for getting people to vote it, it can be tricky. Wedding couples get married and move on.

You know, often to big stuff like job promotions and buying a house and having children, it, you know, it can be, it can be a little bit of a distant memory. We have a blog post that has all sorts of tips about how to get your couples to vote for you. We don't, we frown upon incentivizing couples to do so. It's not really in the spirit of the awards, but if you're. nice and polite and, and, and ask them kindly. They, they want to vote for you. They're just busy.

And I know everyone's busy, but they're really busy, obviously, because it's them. They will vote for you. And as that deadline looms, They will get their act together. And that's why some people who enter very late in the process find that process easier because there's a deadline. You need to vote by this time next week. And they'll do it. Other, other entrants will enter at the very beginning.

And then after every wedding as part of their, their feedback loop, they'll say, please, can you vote for us? And they collect their votes as they go through the year. So it really is horses for courses, but your couples. love you. They, well, if they love you and they love what you've done for them, they will want to help you win an award because they will bask in your reflected glory. They will be able to say to their friends and family. Oh yeah.

Well, of course, our photographer, wedding photographer of the year, but we found them before, you know, which makes us really cool and know we know what we're talking about. So they will vote for you. We get more votes, client votes than, than other awards get. and where anyone can vote. So don't let that put you off. You just, just, and it's nice to reconnect with them, to be honest.

Chances are we won't get a lot of response, but if we put a bit of thought and effort, it sounds like you've got loads of resources to help with that. Then we're much more likely to get a result from it. Okay, I've got one more thought on this because I think I'm spending a lot of time at the beginning because I think this is the process that happens with clients is that it actually takes them the longest to decide whether or not they want to be part of it.

Because once they're part of it, they'll go through the rest of the process that will happen. But they think, right, awards, yeah, I'm going to enter. As you said, they get to that payment page, 108 pounds, I think it is this year, something like that. And then they go, not for me, or, oh, I don't know now. And they panic and they can't decide. So quite often people come to me and say, Becca, do you think I should enter this awards?

So I just wanted to have a little discussion about what people should be thinking about when they get to that payment page or when they get to that point in order to decide. So whenever someone asks me that question, I always say, right, you need to think of it as a marketing and PR opportunity. It's an investment.

So before you decide whether or not to do it, Think of a game plan about how you're going to get the most out of that investment, the same way that you would if you paid for an advert in a magazine, and do your research. Have you got any other tips about what people should be thinking about as they make that decision?

As business owners, we, it's very hard to find time to spend on the business because we're too in the business all the time. So through answering the profile questions, that's part of your entry submission, you'll have to think quite hard and concisely about you and your business and why you do stuff and what, how you do stuff. And where'd you see yourself in 12 months time? And that, how are you going to get there? And that sort of thing. I know lots of.

Lots of suppliers enjoy that process and will do it communally with their team. The community aspect that we've talked about is, is so important. If you know, it can be isolating and isolated being a wedding supplier.

And as a photographer, I sit at my desk, editing photos on my own, wondering if what I'm doing works to be able to connect with others, and I know you can do it in Facebook groups, but it's not the same as doing it face to face in an environment with like minded people, because they've also entered the awards and done well. They're at the top of their game. Then that is a real bonus to content creation. Gosh, I mean, that's the special source for social media. How do you create content?

It's easy if you're a photographer, if you make a product, but how do you engage with on social media with people? Well, taking them through your journey or through an awards process is engaging by definition. It shows the It projects self confidence. It shows that you care passionate about what you do and that you're prepared to put your hand up as one of the best in the business, which is attractive to audiences. They want to share that with you. And then people say, Oh, what if I don't win?

What will that look like? I said, would you have to just get in front of that and go, I didn't win. It wasn't my year, not my time. I'm going to go away. I'm going to learn from the people that did win and they come back stronger next year. Again, positive sort of words there. So. That content creation, so we'll give you. There's an entrant you get, we've entered logos, the finalist logos, winners logos, all that stuff. And then if you come to our events, there's so much there.

There's selfies, there's branding everywhere, there's videos of all sorts. There's so much content. Even on the, what you're, what you're going to wear, the journey to, I mean, the national event is, our social media is full of people on the train with a bottle of champagne, with a load of other national finalists. hammering down to London. And, and of course, if you tag us in any of this, we're going to share it and your promotion, that's part of your industry profile being raised.

So none of that is about winning an award because the winning of the award, the winning bit is easy. That's obvious. Or being, even actually being a finalist, cause it's still a heady space. Not many people get that far just to put it in perspective. Each year around about 1, 200 to 1, 300 businesses enter the awards and about two thirds of those become regional finalists. It's another myth, everyone thinks that, people think that everyone becomes a finalist, that would just be stupid.

So about two thirds, so you're talking about the tiny percentage of the roughly 80, 000 wedding businesses There are in this country. That is very good, credible differentiation. So yeah, I think those are the main things I would say on that. Not many people have, I don't think I've been asked that question, Becky. So I was just sort of on the fly there, but there is so much more to entering the awards than winning. That is how I would sum it up.

Initially each entrant as part of the the way we work out the who the regional finalists are I can go into that. It's quite long winded and it is on the website, but in effect, as I mentioned before, we, we use the average voter score throughout the judging process, all entrants that are above the category average automatically become finalists. regional finalists. Any that are below that category average, albeit slightly most of the time, they get shown to the judging panel at this stage.

The judging panel can then assign wildcards to, to ensure that we're not just because someone got one, you know, it's a tiny percentage below that average. We're not losing a great business slipping through the net. So they can assign those wildcards and those, those people, those businesses become finalists. So that's how we do the finalists. The judges then look, look at everybody who's been made a finalist in their category and they look through all that data and they make their decisions.

We do not place any criteria on the judging. I think that is to prejudge personally. What I have learned over the years is that more Within reason, the more respected expert varied the judging panel with the more judges we have as well, the more rigorous the results, and because they're judging remotely, there's no one big personality. You can override everybody else, which is really important when you're judging. You've done it yourself as if I. Some big personality tells you you're wrong.

Well, hold on, I'm a judge here too. My, my voice counts. So how we work it is each judge selects their top three gold, silver, bronze, eight points for gold, four points for silver, two points for bronze, and the winner in that category, regional category, is the one with the most points. So in order to win the all regional category, you have to garner points. lots of points from most of the judges. Mathematically, that's how that works.

If there's a tie I contact the judges and we talk about it a little bit more. We'll exchange and, and if there's, we still can't decide, as chairman of the judging panel, I have the casting vote. That has never happened. Very often, it's very clear cut. Which I love because there's lots of judges, you know, there's some categories, there are more than 10 on each on the panel. If they're all pretty much agreeing that that person is either their gold or silver.

then they've got all the by far the most points, then they are the winner. If it's very close, we'll also have what we call a highly commended. We don't call it a runner up because it doesn't happen in every category. So highly commended to acknowledge the fact it was very close. And that's done on a per category basis. So I ask a lot of the judges, would they volunteer? for this. But I think they find it interesting. They tell me they do and they stay on the panel for years. So that's good.

And they take it very seriously. They know they're putting their own reputation and brand on the line here. So they take it seriously. I know plenty of judges who'll go to company's house to check that every single entrant is. a bona fide business, all sorts of cross referencing going on. So they take it seriously. They berate me because the standard gets higher each year, so they find it harder to make their decisions, but the decisions are made.

And what I need to do is when I'm standing there saying hello to everyone as they come into the event, standing on the stage, doing the presentation of the awards, I need to trust that process. I need to know that all of our judges have done that job. The ones that don't take it seriously, and I can tell, for instance. I'm able to see how long they spend in the judging area. And you can tell whether people are taking it seriously or not. I politely asked them to step away.

It happens very, very rarely. Because TWA has a reputation and it's a strong brand in the industry. People, if they get asked to be on the panel, they want, they know they had to do this properly. And in return they come to our national event for free and I buy them loads of drinks. So at the end of the day, it's There's booze involved and that for my, for our judging panel seems to do the trick for quite a few of them.

But equally, not all entries, a bit like not all awards, are created equal. And I've judged some where quite honestly, the people who've entered the awards obviously couldn't be bothered to fill in very much information. And so some people have obviously taken loads of time and they write out loads of information about what they do and all that kind of thing. And others, you just get one word. And so if you are entering and you've got an opportunity to fill out boxes, Fill them out properly.

Give those judges the best chance of being able to review not only what others have said, but what you've said about your business as well. Look like you care, because that is going to come into play. If you can't even be bothered to fill out the form, why should the judge spend that long looking at your stuff?

Showing the judges around your shop. Don't be shy. Get it. Get use that little tool in your hand, that little video camera on our phones and, and show the judges who you are. Yeah. Uploading photos of dresses is, is not enough. I don't think similarly things like not using professional photography. There's no excuse these days. You can contact the, the wedding photographer. Don't expect to have it for free.

Or, you know, just for a sort of You know, a credit on on social or something but you should have good relationships with photographers at the weddings that you're supplying and use their photographs or learn to do it yourself, even with your phone, things like that can really make you stand out ahead of everyone else. And as I said, we have this blog post that highlights all those, those top tips, but you're absolutely right.

You know, even if you're the best supplier in the world, if you haven't made an effort on your entry, you're not going to do as well as you might hope.

Is it quite a high percentage of people that get shortlisted? What is the chances of me saying, right, I'm going to enter this awards, I'm paying 108, get people to vote for me, and then nothing happens? Like, is that high risk or low risk?

So in some categories that are more populated than others, that photography is the biggest category we have because everybody's a wedding photographer these days, aren't they? The, we'll get more entrants and we'll get more finalists than other categories. So there's no set number. But about two thirds, so roughly a two in three chance of becoming a finalist, which I think's pretty good. I mean, they're pretty good odds.

And, and the key thing here is if you don't become a finalist, you have to try and work out why and look yourself, be honest with yourself and go, How, okay, let's go look at the people who are finalists. What are they doing that I'm not? Can I, can I? learn from this. I could give you so many examples of people who've come up to me at the awards events, regional ones, particularly, and said, I can't believe I've won. I've entered this for five, six years.

And the first year I didn't become a finalist. And I was so cross with you, first of all. And then I actually thought, hold on a second, I need to get better. So I then improved different aspects, entered again, got made a finalist three years as a finalist. And then finally I've won and I can't believe it. And it's not, that's not about boosting her business. That's her own personal development. As I say her, because it was this person I'm thinking of.

And that is just incredibly gratifying, because that's not about winning. That is about developing yourself, learning that it's not easy to run your own business, and you have to look yourself in the mirror and be honest and say, how do I, you know, I need to improve, I'm going to do that, how. And TWIA can really help with that, that, that, that mentality, but also giving you the, the, the tools almost to do it through voter feedback and things like that.

So. I think, again, you have got a good chance of being a finalist if you're good at what you do, your couples, and your couples love you, and they vote for you. Make an effort on your judging profile. I think, you know, you'll do well. People do.

So every year there are a handful of quite a few regional finalists who can't come, a handful of whom end up being announced as a regional winner. And what we do is we give them a virtual high five and a huge virtual hug and we give them a cheer and we send them their trophy in the post. And we hope that next time if they enter again, they'll, they'll think, Oh, I'm really missed out there. So yes, you don't have to come.

If you enter those awards, assume that you're going to want to go to that night because the social content and the stuff that you're going to get out of it, the connections is well worth being there. How do I get into the national awards then? So if I've, I've done something at the regional awards, how do I qualify for national?

And they judge, they judge again, and again, they do gold, silver, bronze, and the winner, the national award is the one with the most points. So yeah, pretty simple and straightforward that one.

What tends to happen is if someone tries to buy a ticket and they're not original finalists that gets flagged up and I would contact them and just say, we just need to wait until We've, we make sure we've got the finalists in the room and then, yes, we can get you a ticket. And anyone can come. You can bring as many as you like. First come, first served. Your entourage, your family, your colleagues, obviously venues would bring event teams.

They bring the chef, the cleaners, everyone, because without them, the venue doesn't exist. So it's a good excuse. You know, our events are like, are really for people who spend, they're parties for people who spend their whole time at other people's parties or organizing them. So things do get a little loose, which I like.

If you go with your other half, as nice as that is from a business perspective, it's maybe not the right thing to do.

It's about the process. It's about the network. It's about the content. It's about everything. But very occasionally, someone who maybe is struggling with their mental health, or is not feeling in a good place about their business, puts themselves into these things and then ends up feeling worse. because maybe they didn't get the votes they wanted or the comments they wanted or they didn't win and they wanted to win.

And so I think it's really important that when people make that decision, they come at it from the right headspace and don't put them in a situation that might maybe escalate those feelings. Have you got any thoughts or advice on that?

And I, and I understand that. I had someone yesterday. He said she has dyspraxia and dyslexia. She finds it hard to type in cohesive, comprehensive, you know, answers into a web page. So I said, okay, she said, could we do voice notes? I said, well, we can't really, we don't have the function for that, but I would suggest you get a friend to help Dictate to them and they'll type it up for you and they will help you. And she went, Oh gosh, I hadn't even thought of that. And so off you go.

I think I would go back to what are you trying to get out of this? Realistically, if you're a new business, especially, are you trying to, do you think you're going to win? Yeah, I know you think you're, you're good at what you do and you are. But he is room for improvement almost certainly.

So come at it thinking I'm just going to get out whatever I can and and anything like getting in the room at an event as a finalist or as a winner is a bonus and and you may not even I get we've had some people he said, I'm not coming to the event because I I can't handle that sort of environment, absolutely no problem, and that's part of the reason we have, well, you can win if you don't come.

Similarly, we've had winners very occasionally who've, who've said to me, if I win, I won't be coming up to the stage to pick up my trophy. And I, and I get, I hear, I know the results maybe a day before, so not long before and I can note on my script, ah, right, I remember. That's why I, the person that does the stage bit as well, because I can remember this stuff. I guess she won't be coming up, but we give her a round of applause and she stays sitting in her seat.

So we're very accommodating to that. And I think you go back to what you said at the very beginning. We project ourselves as this big national awards. Of course we do. Right now I'm sitting in our office. It's just me. It is me and and Anna when she's here working on all our events. She's our event director and then we have a few other people who work part time doing various different things. We are a small team. We care about this stuff.

We care about this industry and we care about running the awards in the right way for the right reasons because frankly in this industry no other awards come close and that is important to us, that integrity. So if you have or are faced with any issue that that you're uncertain about. From a mental health point perspective or any aspect and you think Twi is just not for you, get in touch with us, email us, because it'll be me that answers it and I'll be able to help you, I'm sure.

So let's get a date in the diary and we'll do a part two. But in the meantime, now is the time for people to decide whether to enter. So just give us those dates. If people are thinking, yeah, this sounds like it's for me. What is the last date that they can get their entry into you?

Now, I always end my podcast episodes with the same question, Damian. So I'm going to put that to you now. And it's this, what's one thing you wish you'd known sooner in your own wedding business?

At our Southeast event last year, down at the Ravenswood in Sussex, on the front row, and it's always, no one wants to sit at the front row, it's like going to a comedy gig, no one wants to sit on the front row, but on the front row were all the finalists in the celebrant category. They were sitting together. Now, that is rare in itself.

We talked about, you know, connection over competition, but there they are sitting on the front row, and I clocked them, and I know, I know them because I've seen their faces on their entry forms, and blah, blah, blah. And, When we came to the celebrate category, there was a highly commended and the whole row went bananas for that person. It was so lovely and I always make everyone go right on the long way so they get to come down the aisle.

So they had to go all the way around the edge and come down the aisle to high fives and rapturous applause. And then she went back to her seat and everyone was just, oh my god, congratulations! And then they wouldn't shut up for me to announce the winner. And the winner is X. And they went mental again, obviously, for that person. And I think that's, this is a business event. And this is the sort of vibe that's in the room. I wish I'd known that. It is so gratifying that we change through Twia.

People are able to change their businesses, but they're definitely able to change themselves as well. They're able to be better in so many different ways. And that sort of community really helps people. I think who need people who need it and want it, it really helps. And it's hard to get somewhere else. So I wish I'd, I wish I'd known that we would do that from the beginning. Cause I think we would have tried to instigate it a bit more as we came along, but it's happened organically.

So that's probably the best way anyway.

Damien, thank you so much for your time.

And hopefully I'll see some of you winning awards at the national final this year. Take care and I'll see you next time.