Introducing The Global Wedding Excellence Awards: Your Time to Shine

Wedding professionals, your moment for global recognition has arrived! The Wedding Academy proudly introduces the Global Wedding Excellence Awards (GWEA) – our inaugural celebration of exceptional talent throughout the wedding industry.

After mentoring over 8,000 wedding professionals across two decades, we've witnessed the extraordinary passion, creativity, and dedication that defines this industry. Now, we're creating the spotlight you deserve. Whether you're a planner crafting flawless events, a photographer capturing timeless moments, or a newcomer bringing fresh innovation, GWEA offers the perfect platform to showcase your excellence to the world.

The awards span eight global regions including Asia, Africa, Europe, Canada, USA, Australia, New Zealand, and the Middle East, with categories covering every specialty from planning and venues to floristry and entertainment. Our unique process combines public appreciation with expert evaluation – after applications close April 30th, public voting will determine finalists before our distinguished panel selects winners to be announced July 1st, 2025.

Winning means more than just bragging rights. Recipients gain powerful industry validation, extensive media coverage, marketing opportunities, and official badges that differentiate you in a competitive marketplace. Most importantly, it's your chance to be recognized for the magic you create behind the scenes every day.

Ready to take your place among the best? Submit your nomination at weddingacademyglobal.com/awards today. With over 100 entries already received, this promises to be a landmark event celebrating wedding professionals worldwide. Your extraordinary work deserves extraordinary recognition – join us in this celebration of wedding excellence!

Chapters

• 0:51 Exciting Industry Announcement
• 2:32 How GWEA Nominations Work
• 4:50 Public Voting and Judging Process
• 5:55 Benefits of Entering the Awards
• 6:59 Award Categories and Regions
• 8:42 Call for Nominations and Sponsors

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:28

Hi everyone. It's Jack here doing a little special episode by myself, because I have some really, really big news to share with you all. I am absolutely beyond excited about this. If you're in the wedding industry, this is pretty big. For the first time ever, wedding Academy are rolling out a global awards program that celebrates the absolute best in our industry. It's called the Global Wedding Excellence Awards, or for short GWEA, and we are kicking off right now. The nominations are open for these inaugural awards. So if you've been hustling behind the scenes, creating magical moments and making dreams come true, and you've ever thought I wish there was a way to get recognized for all of this hard work, well this is your moment. So, the GWEA awards we're creating these to celebrate excellence, innovation and talent, and also up and coming talent as well. So, amongst a whole range of awards that we are going to be giving out, one of them is Best Newcomer, which is great, really exciting for those of you who are just getting started. We're going to be shining the spotlight on planners, venues, florists, caterers, photographers, djs, celebrants, entertainers you name it.

Speaker 1: 1:53

For over 20 years, the Wedding Academy has mentored and trained over 8,000 wedding professionals worldwide, so we've seen firsthand how much passion goes into this industry and now it's really time to give you guys the recognition you deserve. So let me fill you in on how it works. Nominations are now open and the best part is you can nominate yourself or someone that you think deserves it. All you need to do is go to the website weddingacademyglobalcom and there's an option on the menu called awards. If you go there, there's a quick little form. You fill out the details for the person that you're nominating. Now what happens after that is the person that you've nominated will get an email and if they want to accept their nomination and progress to become an applicant, that's where they'll sort of fill out all the rest of the details for their application. So things like telling us about their business, uploading examples of their work, sharing client testimonials, business uploading examples of their work, sharing client testimonials showing there's also a lot of other questions around, sort of you know, highlights of their business and challenges that they've worked through. So it's really about finding those businesses that have gone the extra mile, have really resonated with their clients and and maybe have gone through some challenges in order to get there. So, after the nominees are notified by email, they've got until the 30th of April to complete their submission. Now there is a small entrance fee I think it's $99 US and that's obviously going to cover our expenses to be able to put on this awards. So all the applications need to be in by the 30th of April.

Speaker 1: 3:39

The next day after that, public voting is going to begin. So there's a dedicated website page and all of the people that have become official applicants will be on there in. It sort of looks like a photo gallery, I guess where the public will be able to go in and vote for their favourite. So you'll be able to open up each business, have a look at their submission and share it or, of course, vote for that person. There will be some limitations in that you can only vote for one person per category. So it's going to be a whole month for public voting. That's going to be from the 1st to the 31st of May. So for you guys who are the applicants, this is your chance to really rally your fans and your clients and get people to vote for you. Now, at the end of the month of may, there's going to be a top 10 in each category which will become finalists. So you will be able to always say in 2025, I was a finalist for the gwea awards. We will be giving you recognition that you can keep to celebrate even that achievement, and then those top ten will move to a judging round where we're assembling right now an expert panel who will have one month pretty much the month of June to go through the finalists in each category and vote for their chosen winner.

Speaker 1: 5:05

On the 1st of July we're going to have the 2025 winners will be announced and, trust me, you guys are going to want your name on that list. So I guess let's have a little chat about why. Why would you want to enter this competition? So I know that so many of are out there working your magic, but here's the thing being amazing at what you do isn't enough if people don't know about it. So winning or even being a finalist in the GWAA Awards is an absolute game changer for your business. It's going to give you industry recognition. You're going to stand out and you're going to have that badge and that title to be able to put behind you on your emails, your websites and whatnot. You're also going to get exposure across our global platforms. We're going to be highlighting not only the winners, but also the finalists and the submissions, so it's a really great opportunity to put your work and what you do out there on a global scale. There will be prizes for the winners. There'll also be media features, marketing opportunities and, of course, an official badge that you'll be able to showcase, and it's a chance to let your audience support you, so your biggest fans will finally be able to show you how much they love your work.

Speaker 1: 6:16

Now, in terms of the categories, there's a lot, so let's break it down. There are eight different regions, first, that you need to know about. We've got Asia, we've got Africa, europe, canada, united States, australia, new Zealand, middle East I think I haven't forgotten anywhere. There's eight. Anyway, hopefully we're covering most of the world.

Speaker 1: 6:42

Now, in terms of awards, there is a stack of ways that you can win one of these awards. So, best newcomer for businesses operating less than 12 months. We also have wedding planner of the year, wedding stylist of the year, florist of the year, wedding venue of the year, wedding photographer of the year, wedding videographer of the year, year wedding photographer of the year, wedding videographer of the year, wedding stationer of the year, wedding caterer of the year, and so on. There's actually quite a few categories and each of these categories will be able to be won in that particular region. So the title that you would take home is wedding planner of the year USAding Planner of the Year Europe, etc. So, look, it is our first year doing this event.

Speaker 1: 7:30

So, whilst I do have really, really, really big plans for this, I know that it's going to take time for it to get off the ground and really get known around the world. So I really appreciate your support. Go and check it out. Go to weddingacademyglobalcom, go to the awards page, have a look. It'd be great if you can go in and nominate some businesses that you want to support, or go in and put in your own nomination. We'd love to see your names popping in there. We've already had a hundred entries since we went live a few days ago, so I am really pumped.

Speaker 1: 8:07

I think this is going to absolutely go off Now. If anyone wants to sponsor or provide prizes, we are still looking for regional sponsors and prize contributors. So if you're interested, drop me an email on jack J-A-C at weddingacademyglobalcom. All right? So this is your moment. This is your absolute time to shine. So, whether you're just starting out or you've been in the industry for years. The GWAA Awards are here to celebrate you and the work that you do to make weddings unforgettable. So nominate someone or yourself today, tell your story and let the world know how incredible you are. I'll be back with more soon in terms of updates, but for now, go and get that nomination in. This is Jack Bowie signing off, and I can't wait to see your name on the nominee list. Cheers, guys. Bye.