There’s so much going on behind the scenes at Love My Dress at the moment. In addition to us lobbying on behalf of the industry and couples planning weddings too, through the What About Weddings campaign, we’ve got multiple exciting new projects bubbling away to help ensure both our reader and supplier/venue communities feel well supported in the coming weeks and months.
Today, lovely brides, we’d like to invite you to be part of one of them.
We love stories. Stories are at the heart of Love My Dress. Sharing real wedding stories is one of our greatest privileges – to be entrusted to share your precious wedding day with so many other readers really is quite something special that we take very seriously indeed.
We also feel strongly, after the experience of the past six months, and not knowing what the next few months will hold, that we want to share our opportunity to share stories through this trusted and much loved platform, with you.
Starting next month, we’d like to launch a ‘Real Brides Planning Weddings’ series.
We haven’t just done this on a whim, either – so many of you have reached out asking us to consider doing something like this. We know things are tricky right now – that a ‘second wave’ is upon us and that the future is feeling a touch wobbly and uncertain again. We understand the need as humans for us to gather together (safely, online!) and share what we’re going through at times like this. We know that so many of you who have had your wedding plans impacted by the pandemic are looking for other brides and couples stories to read and relate to. And we know that you want to share your own experiences too.
It all makes sense to us, because we understand the power of storytelling, and how sharing stories can draw community – a sense of togetherness. And we all need that right now.
So, lovely ones, as of immediately, we’re looking for readers to apply to share their wedding planning journeys and experiences with us and with our whole community. If you fancy a new writing project that will enable you to share your 2020/21/22 wedding plans – we would really, really love to hear from you.
You’ll find a little form below, through which you can apply to be a part of this project. We’ve kept it as simple as possible, but would like you to tell us about yourself, your wedding plans and why you’d like to get involved.
Please tell us as much as possible
We’re keen to share stories from readers from a variety of different backgrounds and cultures – and from those at different stages of the planning process. We’d love to get to know you better, and encourage you to write as much as you like.
We can assure you that we’ll read each and every application with the love and attention it deserves.
If I apply and get accepted, what happens next?
We want this to be an enjoyable project, so although we’ll contact you regularly to encourage you to share new content, there’ll be absolutely no requirement to hit a certain word count every month. We understand that lives are busy and complicated, so there’ll be no need to write a thesis for every submission. But, we do want to work with readers who want to, are happy to and indeed are able to commit to sharing regular updates with our whole community. We promise you however, that we’ll make the process as simple as possible. And if you’re worried about your spelling or your grammar – please don’t, We’ll help you through the process at every stage and will of course be checking over every written piece with our editorial eye before it is published.
How does this sound?
Do you think you’d like to be a part of this?
We would so love you to be.
We’re looking for real life, relatable content
Whatever your experience so far, we invite you to apply. Whether you’ve had to postpone your wedding (once or multiple times) or not at all – we are ultimately looking to share stories of how brides and couples are planning a wedding in these extraordinary times of a global pandemic. We want to encourage you to share your experiences as you navigate your way through the highs and lows and everything in between.
If you think this could be an opportunity you’d love to get involved with, if you’d like to document this unique period in your life, happening through this unique period in history, and if you’d like to be part of the Love My Dress Real Bride community, then please do complete the form below.
We’ll be closing applications on Wednesday 30th September and will be in contact with you in the week, commencing 5th October.
If you have any questions at all, or if you’d like to know more before you complete the form, please do not hesitate to drop your questions confidentially to Tamryn on tamryn@lovemydress.net.
Oh and before we go, if you haven’t yet joined our superb Love My Dress closed group for brides, please do so here.
TERMS & CONDITIONS
1. We’re looking for brides currently due to marry in 2020, 2021 or 2022.
2. Ideally, we’d appreciate a monthly contribution.
3. There will be no minimum word count. We appreciate that sometimes the writing will flow – at others, a couple of paragraphs will do.
4. The data we gather through this form will be held only as long as it requires us to shortlist applications. Thereafter it will be safely removed from our data storage. We will however use the successful applicants email addresses to create a temporary mailing list that will enable us to communicate with our ‘real bride writers’. These email addresses will be safely and securely stored on the MailChimp platform and never shared with any third party.
5. This opportunity is an unpaid one. We are looking for brides who can kindly volunteer their time to contribute to this project.
6. This deadline for entry is midnight on Wednesday 30th September.
Annabel
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Annabel is the founder of Love My Dress. She lives in rural North Yorkshire with her husband and business partner Philip, two daughters Eska and Leanora and three dogs. She is passionate about photography, supporting women in business and in life, and is in her element being surrounded by nature and the countryside.