PRAISE IN PARLIAMENT - WHAT ABOUT WEDDINGS

What About Weddings have been big fans of Dr Rosena Allin-Khan, MP and Shadow Minister for Mental Health for a long time and after she joined us for a discussion on mental health in the wedding industry back in October, we’ve stayed in touch and have been humbled by her support.

Today, however, she has moved us to tears by mentioning us in the COVID-19 debate in the House of Commons. Check out what she had to say below and yes, there were tears…

“What a year it has been. When the British people were called upon to stand together against a common enemy and to rise to greatness, they were not found wanting. I’m thinking of the people who spearheaded the What About Weddings campaign, who created support for couples whose wedding day plans were derailed and for people in the wedding industry who saw their businesses disappear”

— Rosena Allin-Khan, 14th December 2020

A MEETING WITH MILIBAND - WHAT ABOUT WEDDINGS

Ever since Annabel Beeforth, Jessie Westwood and I co-founded the What About Weddings campaign earlier this year, we’ve been engaging with politicians of all parties to sing the praises of the UK wedding industry and to ask for their help and support.

One big supporter is Lucy Powell MP, Shadow Minister for Small Business and Lucy has spoken up for the sector many times, in the House of Commons and in the Media. We’ve also been speaking to Ed Miliband’s team for some time as Ed, as Shadow Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, is a man who is very interested in the plight of the wedding sector and the 400,000 workers to contribute to this £14.7bn industry here in the UK

Today, we coordinated a meeting with Ed and Lucy and were thrilled to invite a number of voices from within the wedding industry to share their experiences and thoughts with the Labour frontbench team. Mark Dawson from Brookfield Barn, photographers Bhavna Barratt and Osman Marfo-Gyasi from Wolf & Co joined us as did venue owner Nusrat Khan and Siobhan Craven-Robins from NAWP.

It was a fantastic meeting with plenty of discussion and points raised. Ed and Lucy both absolutely grasp the situation that the sector is in and the potentially catastrophic impact of any future restrictions. We discussed the diversity of business type and location in the wedding industry, financial support, insurance, and the knock-on impacts for the many women in the sector amongst many other things. Ed and Lucy have promised to write to their Conservative counterparts and continue to support us as best they can. Thank you to Ed and Lucy for their time and to their teams for setting up the meeting.

We can also confirm that there was no chaos whatsoever with Ed Miliband!

A MILLION MOMENTS - WHAT ABOUT WEDDINGS

Now usually, I would say that words are all you need. Words tell the story and words can paint pictures but today, we release our campaign film, ‘A Million Moments’, I might change my mind. This beautiful, heartbreaking, hopeful and ultimately uplifting film shows in stunning, raw detail why we are asking What About Weddings?

I hope you enjoy it and I hope that it makes us all realise just what we’re missing…