There was no entry form to fill in and no fee to pay. The first we knew about The Wedding Emporium Ltd Wedding Industry Awards was an email telling us we’d won Entertainment for Gwent.
How The Award Worked
The Wedding Emporium is a family-run business in Cambridgeshire who run a décor and events company alongside the awards. They researched suppliers county by county and category by category, scored them on what they found, and gave the top of each list the win. Nobody at our end wrote a submission or knew it was happening. Somebody went looking, watched the videos, read what couples had written about us, and made a call.
That’s the part we like. Plenty of awards in this industry run on who shouts loudest or who buys a table at the ceremony. This one came the other way round.
Good Company in Gwent
Entertainment is a crowded category round here, and three other names came out of the Gwent list marked Outstanding: The Cherry Beats, Lynsey Pugh Singer & DJ, and Party Pioneers. All three are working the same Newport and Monmouthshire venues we are. If you’re going to win a category, it’s worth winning one with people in it.
A Strange Year To Win Anything
April 2021 is a peculiar time to be handed anything. Weddings are going ahead in name only - a handful of guests, no reception, no dancefloor. We haven’t played to a full room since 2020, and the diary is a wall of dates that keep moving further out.
The Wedding Emporium said as much in the email. They know it’s a rough stretch for suppliers and they wanted to put something back into an industry that has spent a year being told to stand down. That’s why the timing works rather than jars. It isn’t a trophy for a big season. It’s someone saying the work counts while nobody’s allowed to do it.
When The Dancefloors Reopen
We’re pleased to have won it, and more than anything we’re looking forward to getting back to playing as soon as the restrictions lift. There are couples on our books who have moved their date twice now and are still holding on for the full thing - a proper room, a proper crowd, and a band loud enough to be worth the wait.
When weddings start again properly across South Wales, we’ll be ready.
The Brotherhood are a 5 to 11-piece wedding and function band based in Newport. Get in touch to check our availability for your date.
