Event Report - Wedding Networking Evening

The evening of Wednesday 25th May saw photographers, florists, caterers, planners, entertainers, videographers, boutique owners, make-up artists, jewellery designers, stationers, cake makers and representatives from some gorgeous wedding venues come together at The Elephant Hotel in the pretty Berkshire village of Pangbourne for a wedding networking event and it was a brilliant evening. Julie Tooby & I organised this event in less than two weeks and we were so thrilled by the number of people that came along - it was totally wonderful.

After being greeted by champagne and canapes, there was time to meet and chat before everyone settled down for a great presentation by social media expert Paul Allen. There was a lot of note-taking during Paul's speech and a lot of questions afterwards. A huge huge thank you to Paul for all his enthusiasm and for answering everyone's questions. There's a little snippet of what was covered on Paul's website that makes for interesting reading - To Follow Or Not To Follow...

The rest of the evening was taken up by a LOT of conversation - people meeting old friends, finally putting faces to 'tweeps' and chatting with totally new suppliers. For me, this is what the evening was all about - 'proper' contact with people. I do like Twitter & Facebook, e-mails great too but nothing replaces face to face chats with people. The wedding industry is all about relationships - the relationships between our brides & grooms and the relationships between suppliers. It's good to know who you like, who you respect, who you'd work with. I feel very strongly that I need to know the people behind the websites or tweets to really understand them and this is what made Wednesday night great for me. I caught up with some suppliers I know and respect (and maybe love a little bit too) and I got to meet new people too as did everyone there. It was so lovely to look around and see so many people smiling, chatting, finding things they had in common and learning more about other businesses. We might all be in the same 'industry' but we all do very different things and it's such a treat to get to see things from another viewpoint.

Come the end of the evening, well, people didn't want to leave and conversations were still going on way after the 'finish' time we'd set. When I made it home, there were already e-mails & tweets of thanks & feedback flying around and it seems everyone had a great evening. And since, I've seen people chatting with those they met on Twitter so it seems plenty of great connections were made. I feel like a wedding matchmaker! Here are a couple of comments from the evening...

"Thanks to you & Julie to organising the networking evening last night. It was a great success and you must let me know when you're organising another. It was good to meet so many interesting people." - Christian Dixon, The Bigger Picture Weddings

"I really enjoyed Wednesday's event, it was a huge success. I think it's always brilliant to meet new people in the wedding industry, especially those in the local area. I find it really inspirational to chat with people who are as passionate about weddings as I am. A highlight of the evening was Paul Allen's presentation on social media. Everyone was frantically making notes which is always a good sign! And of course, who can knock tasty canapes and bubbly?! Thanks Tamryn & Julie... when's the next one?" Claire Baggott, Brown Box Photography

Congratulations to Kelly from Tantrums & Tiaras for winning the prize draw and thanks to Robin of Great Wedding Entertainment for music, Dawn from Delicious Dial A Cake for those gorgeous cupcakes and Debbie from Add-Style for chair-covers & sashes. And more huge thank yous to The Elephant for being such an easy venue to work with and Paul Allen for being so fabulous.

The next event will be in September and we'll be sending out Save The Dates very soon - if you'd like to find out the details as soon as they're released, just send me an e-mail tamrynkirby@hotmail.com or find me on Twitter where I'm @tamrynkirby

 

All images courtesy of the rather lovely Brown Box Photography

How My Mouth Works...

Tonight, is the Berkshire wedding networking event and I can't wait. I get a genuine buzz out of meeting new wedding suppliers and of course, catching up with people I've known for years or months is always good too. When you work on your own for the majority of the time, the chance to get together with other (usually) like minded people is one not to be missed and I think it's really important, in the age of blogs, tweets & Facebook pages to really connect with people. I know I do the on-line thing like everyone else and I love it but one of the things I like best about this industry is real people.

Yes, we can have passing contact with people on-line every day - we read their tweets and blogs, we 'like' their posts and we sometimes we see them in magazines and newspapers but for me, there's no replacement for really seeing what someone's like. The on-line world is a funny place sometimes - it can make people with little or no experience into 'experts' and there are so many 'recommendations' floating around based on a few e-mails between suppliers who might not have ever talked to each other or met each other, let alone worked with each other. Now I'm not stupid, I understand how advertising works and I don't have a problem with that at all when it's clear that's what's going on. I don't see a dress designer's full page in a wedding magazine and think that's a personal endorsement from the publisher but I've seen websites who say they handpick the best of the best suppliers to feature when really the only qualifying criteria is your ability to write a cheque - no checks with past clients, no references taken and that makes me so upset. It makes me upset because there are brides out there who believe the hype and pick a supplier who's not as 'handpicked' as they thought. And, let's face it, we all know there are plenty of people who can talk the talk but find walking the walk a much harder task. Fling wedding day tension into this mix as well, the emotion, the pressure, the unexpected things, and someone who always came across as calm can sometimes not be!

However, I know that everyone has to start somewhere and goodness, we've all been there, yet sometimes I wonder where the honesty has gone. No-one likes to admit they're new to the wedding world and it's easy to create a persona that makes you into something you're not (or not yet anyway!). But what's wrong with being 'new' - you can often be fresher and keener and those can be pretty good qualities. Some clients will pick the newer talent, some will pick the old hand - it depends on what they want, how you get on and how you behave. No-one's right, no-one's wrong, it's the client's choice. When it gets sticky is when the client's not had all the information...

So, my mouth works like this - I don't really recommend suppliers unless I've met them, checked them out and ideally worked with them, I might sometimes suggest someone takes a look a website but it comes with the caveat I've not met them and if there's someone I think I'd like to work with, I'll make the effort to meet up. There is a photographer I know who I adore and who I get on with really well but he won't recommend me because although we've met on quite a few occasions, we've not yet worked together and do you know what, I can't tell you how much I respect him for this. Of course, as with all things 'wedding', so much is subjective - what I like, who I like and why I like things will be very different to someone else. That's ok - I'm a different type of supplier to others, I work with different types of brides and do different types of things. That doesn't make me 'better' or 'worse', it just makes me, well, it makes me me. I don't try to be cool (I'm not!), I can't be a 'Londoner' (I'm a country girl through and through!) and that's that. I know whom I am and where I sit and in an industry that's trying to give clients 'their' day, why should we be scared to be true to ourselves? Our mouths, our voices, our fingers tip-tapping on our keyboards, are powerful things, we should be careful how we use them. But we should always be who we are - if you lose that, you've lost everything.

Tonight then is an opportunity for me to meet new suppliers, check out new people and maybe hug a few old (and I don't mean 'old' in age!) 'friends' but there are still lots of suppliers to meet and I can't wait for that either because although sometimes my mouth works in a careful way, it does love a good chat...