7th January 2013 | Posted in gossip by emmajo

A few months ago I was really honoured to be nominated for the regional award ‘Best Wedding Stationery’ for East Midlands as part of The Wedding Industry Awards 2013.

The Wedding Industry Awards is the only independent awards within the industry that is solely voted by brides and grooms. The voting has been designed to be extremely fair and only generates quality votes from couples who have actually worked with that supplier which is brilliant for small, hard working little suppliers like Emma Jo. This was really important to me because a lot of awards out there are completely based on how many votes you can collect, quite often from family and friends and is more of a popularity contest than a true representation of the best products and services suppliers are providing. More importantly these awards inform couples of suppliers who have been highly recommended by previous couples which can really help in the planning stages.

The brides and grooms who I have been so lucky to work with in the last year were invited to vote for me, scoring me on seven categories including customer service and quality of my stationery. Because of the scores and comments I received (which I haven’t be able to see yet!) I went through to the judging stage. A panel of experts looked over all the entries that had received the highest scores from their couples and chose regional winners.

Emma Jo won!

I won the ‘Best Wedding Stationer’ in East Midlands!!

It’s way overdue but I want to thank all my couples who took the time to vote for me and give me such amazing scores that ultimately got me through. I am so pleased and proud to know that I am providing products and a service that my couples are so happy with. I am always trying to find ways to improve and push Emma Jo forward to meet my couples needs so it means a lot to know I’m heading in the right direction. Thank you.

I also had a lovely surprise to find I had also made the shortlist for the ‘Best Website’. The shortlisted websites are all different wedding suppliers sites, not just stationers and I was so chuffed to see my site included. These were nominated by the judging panel and there are some lovely sites on the list. I’ve had some bad and really stressful experiences with my website over the last few years so to be nominated at all is amazing and I couldn’t ask for more.

So, this coming Wednesday we’ll be heading down to London for the Wedding Industry 2013 Awards night! It’s being held at The Bloomsbury Ballroom, a lovely Art Deco venue. I am really excited but nervous too. As I won the regional award I was automatically put forward with the other regional, stationery winners to find the national winner. This is scary. The other stationers are brilliant. I had an interview with Damien Bailey (the awards founder) before Christmas to show him my work and I rambled on about stationery for a good while! Damien then took away some samples and the judges came together a week later to choose their winners. I would love to win. I would really love to win, but the competition is tough and I am so pleased to have won the regional award.

After the awards I get to finally see the scores and comments from my couples, I can’t wait to read them and share them with you.

Fingers crossed for Wednesday!

Emma x