If you follow me on social media, you will probably have seen me talking quite a lot about The Wedding Industry Awards over the last few months. What you might not know is that, behind the scenes, I am a chronic overplanner, overthinker and goal setter. After watching the awards last year, I went into 2026 with a slightly ridiculous list of things I wanted to achieve with Vocals by Britt, and entering TWIA was firmly on it. At the time, it felt like one of those ambitious goals you write down because you would love for it to happen, while quietly wondering whether you are being a little optimistic.
In the first week of October, I opened my emails to find out that I had been named a North West finalist for Musical Act, followed by another email telling me I had also made the Newcomer shortlist. I think it has taken me almost a week to properly process the fact that I am a finalist in two separate categories.
I performed at my first wedding in April 2025, and I think I knew almost immediately that I had finally found the direction I wanted my career to take. Before weddings, my working life had been a fairly mixed bag. I had worked across sales, recruitment and employability, all of which were jobs I was perfectly capable of doing, but none of them ever felt like the thing I was supposed to be doing.
Meanwhile, music had been the constant throughout my entire life. I had spent years training to become a professional vocalist and performing professionally, yet somehow I had still ended up spending my weekdays behind a desk, interviewing twenty people a day or cold calling companies and wondering whether this was really what I wanted the rest of my career to look like.
During 2025, I finally had a fairly serious conversation with myself and my family about what would happen if I stopped treating music as the thing I did alongside my âproper jobâ and actually gave it the attention it deserved. So 2026 has been the year I have worked my literal arse off to find out. At least those years working in strict target driven environments finally came in useful.
Throughout this year, TWIA has always been somewhere in the back of my mind. I loved the idea of having the opportunity to celebrate alongside some of the biggest names in the North West wedding industry, meet suppliers I had followed and admired, and perhaps get a little recognition for the amount of work that had gone into building my business and, more importantly, the service I give to my couples.
Although the singing is obviously a huge part of what I do, I have learned very quickly that being a good wedding singer is about considerably more than singing the right notes. It is answering the emails, learning the songs, creating bespoke arrangements, contacting venues, sending PAT and insurance documents, planning equipment and backup equipment, arriving far earlier than anybody reasonably needs to arrive, and thinking through all of the tiny details that allow the couple themselves not to think about them.
It is knowing when a ceremony needs complete softness and control, when Drinks Reception music should simply sit nicely in the background, and when a Wedding Breakfast needs somebody to step forward and completely change the atmosphere in the room. It is reading the room rather than performing at it, and understanding that the same approach will never suit every couple or every part of a wedding day.
Some weddings have involved carefully planned acoustic ceremony songs, others have involved hosting surprise bridal party entrances, adapting aisle tracks so a large wedding party has more than enough time to make their entrance, or championing an idea a couple really loves even when it might not be the most obvious choice on paper. That is probably the part of this business I enjoy the most. I do not want every wedding I perform at to look or sound the same. I want couples to choose music because it feels like them, rather than because somebody once decided it was what a wedding was supposed to sound like.
Behind all of that is a fairly excessive amount of preparation. My couples deal directly with me from their first enquiry right through to their wedding day. We plan together, I liaise with their venue, we have a final consultation, and by the time I arrive on the morning of the wedding, I have usually imagined virtually everything that could possibly go wrong and quietly created several contingency plans for it. There is a reason I own more microphones than any one person could realistically need, and for better or worse, this industry suits my brain extremely well.
Even with all of that said, I genuinely did not expect to open my inbox and see two finalist emails. I know how much work I have put into Vocals by Britt over the last twelve months. I know the hours that have gone into the weddings themselves, but also the less glamorous bits nobody really sees. The website rebuilds, content creation, consultations, venue emails, equipment upgrades, late night admin, early morning drives and the endless thought that goes into trying to make every booking better than the one before it.
Knowing how hard you have worked and seeing that work recognised are two very different things, which is probably why I have found it so difficult to put into words how this feels. I am incredibly grateful, and honestly still quite shocked, that something I wrote down as an aspirational goal at the beginning of the year has actually happened.
In a few weeks, I will be getting glammed up and heading to the TWIA North West Regional Awards in Warrington, knowing that on two separate occasions there is a possibility I might hear my name called. Even writing that still feels slightly surreal.
What makes it even more bizarre is seeing the businesses I am sharing those finalist lists with. Some of these suppliers are people I have followed, admired and learned from since I first started working in weddings. The idea that my business, which performed its first wedding less than two years ago, is now sitting alongside them is absolutely wild to me.
Naturally, I am also spending a reasonable amount of my time panicking about what on earth I am going to wear and practising how to introduce myself like a normal human being. There is a very real possibility I am going to meet people I have followed online for the last eighteen months and accidentally approach them with the energy of an overexcited fan rather than a fellow wedding supplier. Cue awkward Britt.
Jokes aside, I am incredibly grateful for the opportunity to be in that room at all, and most importantly, I am grateful to the couples who made it possible. Every wedding I performed at, every review, every vote, every unusual song request, every person who trusted me with one of the biggest days of their life and every couple who recommended me afterwards has played a part in getting Vocals by Britt to this point. Without them, I would not have a business to enter into awards in the first place.
I think that is also why becoming a finalist feels so significant. It is not just recognition for being able to sing. It feels like recognition for everything I have been trying to build around that singing. A service that feels personal, wedding music that feels like the couple, and an experience where people know they can trust me to turn up prepared, adapt when plans change, work alongside their venue and other suppliers, and understand when to quietly blend into the background or when it is time to get everybody out of their seats.
Regardless of what happens on the night, I have already managed to tick off one of the biggest goals I wrote down for myself at the beginning of 2026. Vocals by Britt is a TWIA finalist in two categories, and I am going to allow myself to be very, very proud of that before I inevitably go back to overthinking everything else.
For now, I suppose I had better go and find a dress.
