Scottish Wedding Industry Alliance - SWIA

17/05/2024

Text from the Scottish Tourism Alliance -

This week, we were delighted to be joined by independent organisations of all types for our latest webinar in partnership with SPS Advisory; Unlocking Hidden Opportunities: Navigating COVID-19 Business Interruption Claims for the UK’s Tourism and Hospitality Industry.

🎥 A recording of the webinar is now available to view here 👉 tinyurl.com/tz37ufzk

💻 A copy of the presentation can be accessed here 👉 tinyurl.com/4sdce77x

💡 Find out more about SPS Advisory and access support here 👉 tinyurl.com/5cceafk5

fans

14/01/2024

Just an update for our members and businesses that are part of SWIA and Married in Scotland.

Our site for www.marriedinscotland.com is now established and coming up very well in search terms in other countries.

Our marketing team have already attended a few events last year pushing couples to the site.

We will be in attendance at the -
The Edinburgh Wedding Exhibition at the end of January with a large 3 x 2 stand promoting the sites.

We have featured in two Scottish wedding magazines -
Your Scottish Wedding and Engaging Wedding Magazine with full pages last year and this year again signposting to the site.

Visit Scotland advisory and marketing team are working with us on a few areas across the site and socials right now.

You will see us featuring blogs for weddings and we are also tagging your pages on the stories with direction to your site.

All businesses working with us on Married in Scotland will also be given a membership on Scottish Wedding Industry Alliance this year as we bring together both services in 2024.

As part of the SWIA site you also have benefits that kick in from us being an associate part of STA (Scottish Tourism Alliance)

An email will be working it's way to you next week clarifying this information with processes.

We are delighted to also increase our leadership team of volunteers who can be seen on the link here -

www.swia.scot

Showcasing the best of Scotland's wedding venues and wedding suppliers. Promoting the whole of the Scottish wedding industry.

02/10/2023

***** CALL TO ACTION *****

Autumn call for real life weddings to be featured in the Married in Scotland blog. Looking for weddings that showcase Scottish venues, suppliers and Scotland as a destination for world class weddings.

All weddings will be considered but we're under-representing people with disabilities, couples from minority ethnic groups and LGBTQ+ couples.

If you can help, email [email protected] and we can get started!*

*minimal work for you and all the rewards. Win win!

Photo credit: Zoe Alexandra Photography

24/03/2023

At the Scottish Wedding Industry Alliance - SWIA our goal is to increase the number of weddings that come to Scotland via Married In Scotland website 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

We also need to continue our relationship with Scottish Government, ministers and all other hospitality groups, ensuring our industry is always considered and represented when important decisions are made that will affect trade.

Yesterday, Alexa from our team met with the Hospitality Group at Parliament.
Ivan McKee was present.
The meeting agenda was covering-

Deposit Return Scheme and the problems we face if it goes ahead.

Push for VAT to move to 5 %

Reduction in business rates to be on a par with England.

The negative impact that the Alcohol Sponsorship Ban will have on our industry.

Other problems - Recruitment, University courses down on course application for our industry.
Investment in Scotland slowing until decisions are made with government on some of the above.

It is critical that we have a strong leadership group always representing our industry.

All meeting points were noted and now we await a new FM to see next steps and ensure we are heard.

We will be opening the recruitment for this next week. Please keep an eye on the page.

Thanks for engaging so far.

Image courtesy of
Neil Thomas Douglas Photography

SWIA

20/03/2023

Promotional advert for Married In Scotland 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿
Please contact us to get involved 💻💻
Find out more here ⬇️⬇️

20/03/2023

Update on progress guys 👋👋
Thanks for your patience 🙏🏻🙏🏻
Start of the paid for listings will be April.
Lots more updates to follow 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

22/02/2023

Hi Everyone

We're keen to gauge the views of industry on the forthcoming Deposit Return Scheme and what the perceived impacts are.

Will it have an impact on your business be that financial or on labour to implement?

What are the implications?

Does it help to deliver a more productive recycling system?

Will it reduce littering?

We're keen to represent your views to Scottish Government, so please do feedback.

Thanks in advance

SWIA

22/02/2023

Update on www.marriedinscotland.com

Thanks to our volunteers leadership group for working hard behind the scenes on everything.

07/02/2023

Just an update everyone on www.marriedinscotland.com

We are now in the final stages of website tweaks.

It's not being pushed out to consumers yet for another two weeks until we are completely finished.

Given we are a group of volunteers we are pushing forward well with it.

We had another meeting yesterday with Visit Scotland and once we have everything in place for the site they will start to signpost us.

There are changes to the sub categories.

Only categories that will have subs will be -

Entertainment
Transport
Venues
Venue Decor

Our designer is amending this right now.

Our socials are being set up for consumers as well.

There will be some changes to the website and we already have some amazing sponsors signed up that we can't wait to announce!!

We will be starting the recruitment process next week to have someone manage the site which without the investment of our sponsors we would have been unable to do, so we appreciate everyone's patience with it as the site grows.

Please note, your listing start date won't be until we go direct to the consumer, so please don't feel you are missing out right now.

Thanks for your patience.

On the social side can we ask you to like the Married in Scotland page?

Thanks everyone who has already signed up and joined the site.

We are now fully set up as a not for profit CIC, all profits will be re-invested into the Scottish wedding industry.

https://www.facebook.com/Married-In-Scotland-112945248376743

Plan your Scottish wedding with inspiration.
Not for profit site supporting the industry.

04/02/2023

Have your registered your wedding business for the new consumer facing website Married in Scotland 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿
We are a fully registered CIC.
Meaning all of the profits from MIS generated by SWIA will be re-invested into the Scottish wedding industry.
Have a look at our promotional video 🤍

This is "Married In Scotland Promo V1.mov" by jon robertson on Vimeo, the home for high quality videos and the people who love them.

24/01/2023

Did you know SWIA is in the final stages of becoming a Community Interest Company (CIC)? A CIC's primary purpose is to provide benefits to the community, rather than to the individuals who own, run or work in them. A CIC is never run for private gain, there is total transparency around financial activities and, most importantly to us, community benefit is at their heart.

When you sign up to the cimsumer facing arm of SWIA, Married in Scotland, you are not only showcasing your business, you are actively contributing to the future of the Scottish wedding industry. Good vibes all round.
www.marriedinscotland.com

📷 Cranhlll Water Tower- Allan Law Photography

22/01/2023

Hello! I'm Claire (the Humanist) and I'm the one with the glasses. Fun fact- my slightly wild-eyed stare in this pic is due to me trying exceptionally hard not to vomit. I find the threat of becoming a mad spewing meme is remarkably effective at preventing a person from succumbing to a 24hr bug mid-wedding. I made it to the car. Nearly. Thanks for your concern.

To business: I'm responsible for creating blog content for Married in Scotland and I need your help!

I'm looking for:

▪️ **REAL LIFE WEDDINGS** specifically non-Scottish couples enjoying Scottish weddings. Have you worked with any couples who have either chosen Scotland as their destination wedding location or have come home from afar to get married? If so, sound them out. Would they be happy to be featured on our blog? Check out our first featured RLW, Jana and Jason, if you want to see what it will look like.

▪️ **SUPPLIER LOVE STORIES** Your turn! Tell me how you met the love of your life, how you knew they were the one, that sort of thing. I've had some fantastic stories so far but more would be great and then I can run a late night double feature picture show 💋

▪️ Lastly, I'm on the hunt for **ECO-CONSCIOUS SUPPLIERS**, in particular those of you whose businesses are built round sustainability and zero-waste.

You/your couple only need to complete a quick questionnaire, send me appropriate photos/videos and, in return, you get a mention in the post and link back to your website or socials. Easy peasy.

Best way to contact me is [email protected]. Thanks for your help and feel free to fire over any questions x

https://marriedinscotland.com/

04/01/2023

Married in Scotland - Real Weddings
We are on the look out for real weddings!!

Weddings that take place in all areas of our Scotland.
Highlighting our beautiful country and the fact that in Scotland you can marry anywhere.

This is an ask to send in any information you have on weddings that you think might be great to feature on our Home page or Blog.

Send in please to [email protected] for attention of Alexa

We would be looking for -
Couples authorisation
Photos (we can ask for photographers permission if not already granted)
List of suppliers involved as well as tags.

We can also feature video footage if the videos can be cropped and onto You Tube to allow for them to be smaller.

You can see here exactly what we need and can do.
https://marriedinscotland.com/married-in-scotland.../

Thanks
SWIA

https://youtu.be/W-i9RNSPNuE Suppliers: Venue: Kingshouse Hotel, Glencoe www.kingshousehotel.co.uk/ Photographer: Harper Scott Photography www.harperscottph ...

02/01/2023

Our promotional video about why the
Married In Scotland website will be an amazing opportunity for wedding suppliers based in Scotland 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

Thank you to StrangeWorx Wedding Films and Pindrop Wedding Films for this video and to Dumfries Arms Hotel for the use of their venue ⭐️

Please visit the website to book your listing.

All listings must have full address and location to allow the directory to pick your listing up.

Thanks

Scottish Wedding Industry Alliance - SWIA

31/12/2022

We have LAUNCHED!!

So after a full year of meetings with Scot Gov and Visit Scotland we are finally at the point we have been working towards.
www.marriedinscotland.com consumer site is live.

There are loads of updates and tweaks going on in the background right now as you would expect with a site this size.
We are now open for listings.

Our sponsorship areas are under development and will be live in January.

For suppliers wishing to join, you simply go to the site and complete your own listing, it's then pushed to the verification section for our team to put you live.

We have an amazing plan for the site and a marketing campaign backed by Visit Scotland who will link to us with wedding content, so we do recommend you join us soon.

Romantic Scotland is a key campaign for the month of February with Visit Scotland and we will be highlighting Scotland as the best destination in the world to marry, where you can marry the one that you love in any destination.

We are inclusive to all and we also want to highlight just how sustainable our suppliers are.

If you have any amazing stories about Marrying in Scotland or about how your business is ECO friendly then we also want to hear from you.

You can sign up now for as little as £6 per month for a standard listing.
This website is by the industry for the industry and our leadership group have worked very hard to be able to provide this offering for you to be part of.

All of the profits generated in MIS will be re-invested back into the wedding industry.

Please join us right now on this campaign and sign up when you have the chance during the Winter break.

If you have any questions at all please email us at [email protected]
Please visit www.marriedinscotland.com

Showcasing the best of Scotland's wedding venues and wedding suppliers. Promoting the whole of the Scottish wedding industry.

12/12/2022

If you didn’t make it to our launch today, please check out our promotional video to find out a little bit more about - Married In Scotland
To enquire, drop your email by DM or below

This is "Married In Scotland Promo V1.mov" by jon robertson on Vimeo, the home for high quality videos and the people who love them.

12/12/2022

If you can’t make the meeting in person today, please do join on-line via this link.

06/12/2022

On behalf of SWIA Leadership team, we are excited to announce and share with you the launch of our new consumer facing website by the team at the

Scottish Wedding Industry Alliance - “Married in Scotland”

www.marriedinscotland.com

Our site will promote the whole of the Scottish wedding industry and give suppliers covering all wedding categories the chance to shine together.

The site will showcase our breathtaking country, venues, incredible supply chain and it will guide couples through the steps they need to marry in Scotland.

The team at SWIA and Married In Scotland have partnered with
VisitScotland, which will see the Married in Scotland website link to the VisitScotland website, maximising the opportunity to sell weddings in Scotland both Nationally and Internationally..

The VisitScotland website receives hits of around 2 million every month, opening a new door to help us to re-build our industry to be stronger than ever before.

We have plans for seasonal marketing campaigns, influencer trips and trade shows, promoting the brand of Married in Scotland, ensuring that Scotland is seen as the wedding destination of choice.

Most importantly, all of the profits raised within Married in Scotland will be re-invested to help raise the profile and standards of our precious wedding industry.

This is such an exciting time for our industry, please join us.

Our launch event will welcome wedding suppliers from across Scotland to the -

Dalmeny Park Hotel on Monday 12th December for our presentation about what the future holds for Married In Scotland and how you can join us in this fantastic opportunity for our industry.

To reserve your space at the event, please email your name, company name and number of people attending to [email protected] - we would love to give you the opportunity to join. Please R.S.V.P by Friday 9th December at 16.00 pm.

Please note the event runs from 11.30 am - 13.30 pm.

Refreshments and canapés will be provided.

Thank you in advance.

04/08/2022

We have been contacted by the BBC to find any couples who have had a secret wedding recently.

If any suppliers could help with this please contact me and I can pass on the couples details thanks.

[email protected]

TIA

19/07/2022

Do any of your followers have couples marrying today who would be willing to speak to BBC Radio Scotland about marrying in a heatwave? If so, can you ping me an email - [email protected]

15/06/2022

✨ Member Spotlight - Glasgow Wedding Magazine ✨

"A Free directory magazine featuring wedding venues, suppliers, features, tips and real weddings... all to help you plan your wedding in west and central Scotland!"

🖥️ https://www.glasgowweddingmagazine.com

The Glasgow Wedding Magazine is available In Print + Online. A directory full of ideas for couples planning their Glasgow area wedding.Read it online FREE

14/06/2022

✨ Member Spotlight - The Den at Culross - Weddings ✨

"Our stunning Barn, Byre and traditional Courtyard are available to hire as a blank canvas...You are able to bring your own suppliers to create your event just the way you want to create your own special memories."

🖥️ https://www.theden-atculross.co.uk

13/06/2022

✨ Member Spotlight - RPL Wedding Videos ✨

"Don’t miss a thing on your perfect day with RPL Weddings... We provide a personal, professional approach, making sure we capture your whole day as unobtrusively as possible."

🖥️ https://www.rplweddings.com

09/06/2022

✨ Member Spotlight - Stark Agency Ltd ✨

“To provide a unique event experience to our customers and clients, ensuring we exceed their expectations.”

Stark Agency organise some of Scotland's biggest wedding shows!

The Edinburgh Wedding Exhibition
The Hampden Wedding Show
Ayrshire Wedding Exhibition
Lanarkshire Wedding Exhibition
The BIG Dundee Wedding Exhibition
Perth Wedding Exhibition
Troon Wedding Fayre
Pollokshields Burgh Hall Wedding Show
Edinburgh's Exclusive Wedding Show at The Assembly Rooms
Musselburgh Racecourse Wedding Show

🖥️ https://www.starkagency.co.uk

09/06/2022

✨ Member Spotlight - Sugar8 Wedding Films ✨

"I want to capture your day for you in the most personal and unobtrusive way I can... I am all about the love, the stolen glances, holding hands, the tears, the joy, the lot."

🖥️ https://www.sugar8.co.uk

08/06/2022

✨ Member Spotlight - Pindrop Wedding Films ✨

"Unique wedding films designed to tell the beautiful story of your big day"

🖥️ https://www.pindropweddingfilms.com

08/06/2022

✨ Member Spotlight - Boda Productions ✨

"We honesty believe that your wedding is just that, yours! We purposely don’t interfere on the day, no fussing! We’re discreet and capture your day as it actually happens - a real representation of your day!"

🖥️ https://www.bodaproductions.com/

07/06/2022

✨ Member Spotlight - Unusual Venues of Edinburgh ✨

"Based in Edinburgh’s historical Old Town, Unusual Venues are a family run company who host weddings and events from three of the most exciting exclusive use venues you’ll find anywhere in the UK"

🖥️ https://unusualvenuesedinburgh.com

07/06/2022

✨ Member Spotlight - The Bride To Be ✨

"We work hard to ensure that our brides feel confident and enjoy their day knowing that they look unforgettable."

🖥️ https://www.thebridetobe.co.uk