The Wedding Shortlist’s Surrey-based, husband and wife founders Tony & Lena Moriarty are seasoned wedding professionals having personally filmed and photographed well over 1,000 weddings in a combined career spanning over 25 years.
"After so many years in the wedding industry, it became clear to us that a fairer style of wedding directory was needed — one that better supports the interests of both engaged couples AND wedding professionals. Here’s why"...
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Engaged couples:
Making a once-only booking with around 20 different wedding suppliers leads to understandable anxiety and uncertainty. Mainly because:
1) With pay-to-rank directories higher ranking positions have to be bought. This doesn’t mean that those at the top are the best options - it just means they’ve paid more to be there.
2) Reviews don't always tell the whole story - particularly as independent studies indicate that around 30% of online reviews may be fake or manipulated.
Therefore, deciding who can you trust inevitably means days of research checking and double-checking credentials - and the pressure to get it right can feel overwhelming. Plus, 'search fatigue' could lead to you making the wrong choice.
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Wedding professionals:
We know the frustration you feel with the time-consuming and financial burdens of overloaded, overpriced marketing platforms.
There are two big problems with pay-to-rank directories:
1) Overloaded lists (for example, 90 photographers in Surrey!) mean that by the law of averages your chances of getting a booking are severely reduced - despite the hours each week spent responding to enquiries that come to nothing - all of which are not helped by the lack of transparency regarding ranking and visibility.
2) For the bookings you do eventually get, they typically end up costing you hundreds of pounds each in advertising spend.
With the number of weddings each year on a gradual decline, these problems are only going to get worse.
Wedding directories like this rely on a constant churn of hopeful advertisers, and for many, it can be an expensive lesson. It comes as no surprise to us that on Trustpilot the UK’s biggest wedding directory has a one-star rating from nearly 30% of respondents.
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The Wedding Shortlist:
After many discussions with engaged couples and other wedding professionals we decided to try to solve these problems. Our solution, The Wedding Shortlist, is a directory that delivers more balance, transparency and fairness - built on our core values of quality and trust. Here’s how...
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How we help engaged couples:
Save days of research and streamline your wedding planning.
1) For your peace of mind, our unique credentials’ assessment ensures we list only exceptional, local wedding professionals you can trust. This means you can browse more confidently, with less stress and save days of research time when planning your wedding.
As a starting point, wedding professionals must have at least three years’ experience and be able to answer ‘yes’ to one of these questions:
Wedding venue preferred supplier? Wedding awards finalist? Over 25 five star Google reviews?
Wedding professionals then complete our thorough assessment, which is scored on:
Experience, Reputation, Professionalism, Reliability, Compliance, Communication, Values & Standards.
2) A maximum of 16 listings of exceptional, local wedding professionals per category per county. So no overload or overwhelm.
3) Listings are shuffled each page load for no bias.
4) Wedding professionals are re-assessed twice a year with credentials published on each listing. Our listings are updated every six months so you know they are all maintaining exceptional levels of service.
5) Local wedding professionals are more likely to know your venue and being logistically closer reduces the risk of wedding day delays.
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How we help wedding professionals:
1) We believe your dedication deserves better than excessive marketing costs. That’s why we reward the top 8 applicants (out of the 16 maximum) in each category in each county with a free listing. With weddings on a gradual decline it's never been more important for wedding professionals to protect profits - so any savings we can make on our outgoings will make a BIG difference.
2) With a maximum of 16 per category per county, all our listings are shuffled each page load for fair and equal visibility. So no hidden fees and no pay-to-rank requirements.
3) Listings updated every six months. So no long-term contracts - and a regular reminder of areas where you could improve.
4) Being formally recognised as one the most exceptional wedding professionals in your county enhances your credibility and brand trust.
5) With your credentials assessment results on your listing, it will save you so much time in not having to answer compliance questions that couples rightly ask.
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We genuinely believe that The Wedding Shortlist is a huge step in the right direction towards a fairer wedding directory. But we’d love to hear from anyone who has any additional suggestions!
Every decision we make — from how we assess professionals to how we display listings - is guided by our commitment to quality, fairness and trust.
Best wishes, Tony & Lena