TWIA and Coronavirus – living and working with the New Normal
|We have been blown away by all the messages of support that we have received in the last few days and weeks. Thanks to everyone who has got in touch.
These are unprecedented and difficult times for all of us, on both personal and professional levels, but these are also times where we find out what we’re made of and (re)discover our resilience. It’s great to already see local and virtual communities coming together to support each other.
Weddings, and therefore wedding suppliers, are already being greatly affected. Couples are cancelling or postponing placing many businesses at risk. The Church of England has already limited church weddings to 5 people (the minimum legal requirement of Vicar, the couple and two witnesses). There are likely to be further restrictions on mass social gatherings in the future which will further effect the wedding industry. I understand the pressures you are under; I am a wedding supplier myself and I am seeing my bookings postpone as well.
BUT…couples still want to get married so we can survive this if we work together, share information and ideas and are resourseful and creative; all things that the wedding industry already excels at. You can help by completing our Survey. More on this below.
For the last 10 years, TWIA has supported and championed wedding businesses of all shapes and sizes; it’s why we set up TWIA in the first place and we shall continue to do so in these difficult times.
TWIA IS OPEN FOR BUSINESS
Entries, Nominations and Voting for TWIA 2021 remain open. TWIA’s core aim is to recognise and reward excellence in the wedding industry. This remains relevant and vital to our industry now and in the future.
The vast majority of TWIA happens online; entries, voting, nominations and judging. We very much hope to be able to travel the country with our Regional Awards Events in November and to have our National Awards Event in January. Apart from anything else, these events will be particularly special this year after everything we all will have been though.
For full details on how TWIA works and to Enter your business CLICK HERE.
CONTINGENCY
EVENTS
If we are unable to run our events in November and/or January, we shall announce the Regional and/or National Winners online. In fact, this is what we used to do when we first started TWIA back in 2011. We could also postpone our events to early 2021 instead.
CLIENT VOTING
If Client Voting becomes problematic due to wedding cancellations and postponements, we can temporarily adjust how we run TWIA to accommodate this.
WE WILL UPDATE THIS BLOG POST AND KLEEP EVERYONE POSTED ON ANY NECESSARY CHANGES TO THE AWARDS.
Just like you, we are monitoring and listening to government advice and we shall keep you posted regarding any necessary changes to any aspect of TWIA.
SURVEY
We have put together a survey for wedding suppliers to better understand the state of the wedding industry in these, the early stages of living and working in a world affected by Coronavirus. Once we have the results, we will share them with everyone to help us all navigate this ‘new normal’.
We intend to repeat the survey each month in order to provide regular updates. We hope the survey results will give us all an insight into the mood and actual situation in our industry and help people share their thoughts, ideas and advice and to make contingency plans going forwards.
IF YOU ARE A WEDDING SUPPLIER PLEASE CLICK HERE TO COMPLETE OUR SURVEY.
RESILIENCE, RESOURCEFULNESS AND CREATIVITY
The wedding industry is an incredibly supportive environment and now, more than ever, we need to help and support each other however possible, whilst maintaining our own health and wellbeing and that of everyone around us.
Small business owners are a resilient, resourceful and creative bunch; we have to be. Many of you navigated your business through the financial crisis more than a decade ago, many of you established your businesses in the aftermath of that crisis. We now need to show that same resilience, resourcefulness and creativity in the face of this new adversity.
The bottom line is: We are here for you, and we will do everything we can to help wherever and whenever we can.
So, let’s weather this storm with each other and for each other and, all going well, come out the other side all the stronger for it.
Best wishes to you, your family and your business.
Damian Bailey
TWIA Founder