In my role as editor here at Brides Up North, I’m honoured to be invited to sit on various judging panels for some very prestigious awards ceremonies. Since our launch in 2010, I’ve clocked up a fair few judging credits including; The Wedding Industry Awards 2012, 2013, 2014 & 2015; The Wedding Ideas Awards 2013; The Bridal Buyer Awards 2012 & 2014 and headline sponsor & one time host of The North Of England Wedding Awards 2012 & 2013.
I haven’t yet been asked to judge a wedding cake competition… but here’s hoping!
My most recent engagement was close to my heart, and I was thrilled to be asked to act as a judge in Wedding Blog Category for The National UK Blog Awards 2014, alongside my colleagues at Wedding Ideas Magazine.
The National UK Blog Awards 2014 are the only Blog Awards recognising a multitude of industry professional talent across the UK. The awards provide a unique opportunity for individual professionals and organisations from their sector to be recognised for their social media achievements through blogging, with the chance to network and be inspired by other industry bloggers.
From over 900 entries overall, the awards were narrowed down to 10 shortlisted blogs in each category. I was overseeing both the Individual and Professional categories in the Wedding section, so spent a good few days immersing myself in the content of the twenty hopefuls and getting to grips with their websites. The judging process itself was rigorous and time consuming (I got through a lot of Yorkshire Tea, let me tell you!) but very thorough. Each and every site was judged on specific scoring criteria and commentary, before the final scores were tallied across the board and the winners announced.
As a wedding blogger myself, choosing the winners was both a very hard and a very easy job. The structured scoring process made things easier, but as well as ticking the right useability boxes – was the site easy to navigate, fun to use, do what it said on the tin – I had to follow my heart: was the blog beautiful, was it interesting, would I come back to read in my spare time? Two different judges might reach two very different sets of conclusions, but the job was mine, and I had to choose as best I could.
Becki, from The National UK Blog Awards says: These awards were put on to recognise the best in UK blogging industry […and] in our eyes, everyone is a winner. Your blog is your personal brand and each and every one has its own uniqueness which makes them truly great! 900 bloggers entered the awards so to reach the final alone is a great achievement [showing] talent, passion, dedication and commitment. You are all truly inspirational. We did, however, love announcing the highly commended and winners of each category. It was a true delight to see everyone’s reactions and great smiles (and in some cases tears) across the room!
The judges don’t confer, so although I had an idea of who might do well based on my own scoring, I purposefully didn’t find out until the night itself who the overall winners were. I’ve never been all that good with secrets!
Over 300 attendees from bloggers to judges, sponsors and brands celebrated with the team at The Grange Hotel, St Pauls, London on Friday 25th April 2014. Due to the constraints of a small family and our very own event that same weekend (our fabulous Luxury & Vintage Wedding Exhibition at The Bowdon Rooms – no way I was going to miss that!) I couldn’t attend the awards ceremony itself, but loved following all the action on Twitter from the comfort of my sofa. You could have cut the tension in my living room with a knife that night!
So, Brides Up North, if you’d like to add a few more blogs to your reader (always!) here’s our winners and runners up in the Wedding category. Congratulations to all our finalists.
Join The National UK Blog Awards on Twitter for #BlogHour every Tuesday evening at 9pm till 10pm.
Winners
Individual
Sara Russell
Wedding Sparrow
Organisation
Clair Hinge
Creative Brides
Highly Commended
Individual
Phoebe Miller
So You’re Getting Married
Rona Wheeldon
Flowerona
Organisation
Gavin Forster
Gavin Forster Photography Wedding Blog
Ishari De Silva Ishari
De Silva Weddings
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And now the tables have turned. Brides Up North has entered two categories in The Wedding Industry Experts 2014 Awards…
Most Popular Wedding Show Or Fair
…and we’d love your vote in both!
Please use the links above to show your support. All it takes is a click, and I’ll love you forever.
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Brides Up North UK Wedding Blog – Images © from The National UK Blog Awards website & screenshots from the winning blogs as of 6th May 2015
This is not a sponsored post
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