About us

Our Philosophy

We aim to put wedding businesses and brides in touch with each other with the minimal cost and highest level of professionalism for businesses, and with the minimal hassle and a friendly informative approach for brides. In all that we do we strive to do the very best for all of our clients and our fellow staff members.

Our Clients

Our clients all have a lot in common; they are all wedding related businesses who would like to be in front of the brides that want to use their services. We are proud to list many of the large and prestigious hotel groups and PR companies as clients as well and sole traders and artisans and we strive to meet the marketing needs of every one of them.

Our Brides

Our brides and grooms tend to have the same goal; they aspire to organising the most perfect wedding they can and enjoying the journey from engagement to the honeymoon. Many are professionals with limited time and high standards and need a no-nonsense website as their main source of information.

Our credentials (excuse us while we brag a little…)

Guides for Brides have been judges and sponsors for The Wedding Industry Awards and The British Wedding Awards, and also hold the 2014 Venus Award for Business of the Year in Oxfordshire.

Guides for Brides has the highest performing wedding planning App in the UK, holding the No 1 position on iTunes for both iPhone and iPad.

Our website has had more than 6,500,000 page views in the past 12 months – almost doubling its previous year’s performance. Judging by the webs it’s performance in the week of 2015 we are set to double that again this year.

We have 44,000 Twitter followers and a large fan base on Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest.

Our team

The Guides for Brides team are committed, passionate and great at what they do. Our account managers genuinely care about their clients and enjoy regular contact with them, whether by phone or email, our administration team are hard-working perfectionists and our graphic designers and web developers are creative, intuitive and skilled. A third of our team of 15 have been with Guides for Brides for more than 10 years, growing with the company through regular training courses and opportunities.

Meet the faces behind Guides for Brides:

Director – Alison Hargreaves

Having started Guides for Brides in 1995, Alison is passionate about ensuring Guides for Brides is the primary source of information for all couples planning a wedding in the UK. A driving force within the business she takes a strong interest in current trends and changes in the wedding industry to ensure that brides and businesses can be kept totally up to date with what is new for this year. alison@guidesforbrides.co.uk

Sales Manager – John Maddaford

John is responsible for managing our Sales Team as well as looking after a large client base of his own. John has worked for Guides for Brides since 2004, and has a wealth of knowledge about all areas of the business. john@guidesforbrides.co.uk

Senior Account Manager- Elaine Rough

Elaine joined us in January 2012 after 15 years of sales & customer service in the print trade. As well as day to day sales in the office, she is also responsible for the larger national accounts. Elaine also represents the company at many of the National Shows that we attend. elaine@guidesforbrides.co.uk

Marketing Manager – Dawn Jolleys

Dawn joined the Guides for Brides team in 2015 after taking time out of her marketing career to raise a family. Combining her passion for marketing and her broad commercial experience, Dawn is on board to strengthen the Guides for Brides brand and develop new and exciting partnerships. In her spare time Dawn runs around being a mummy, as well as looking after her horse and dog. dawn@guidesforbrides.co.uk

Account Manager – Ali Moore

Ali joined Guides for Brides in late 2010 having previously excelled in sales and customer service roles. As well as working in Internet and Wedding Fair sales, Ali likes to interact with clients via Facebook and Twitter. ali@guidesforbrides.co.uk

Account Manager – Christine King

Christine first joined Guides for Brides in 2004. With over 18 years of sales and customer service experience, Christine returned in April 2015. Passionate about customer care and customer relationships, as well as shopping, swimming and the colour pink! christine@guidesforbrides.co.uk

Account Manager- Amy Jaremchuk

Amy has worked at Guides for Brides for the last 3 years, with a short career break in Gran Canaria. Amy sells across all Guides for Brides products, and especially enjoys attending our own Wedding Fairs and exhibiting at the UK and National Wedding Shows. amy@guidesforbrides.co.uk

Account Manager – Denise Huff

Denise joined Guides for Brides in 2009, with over 19 years of sales experience under her belt. With a short break, Denise returned back in 2013 and is part of our Internet and Guide sales team. Denise has a great personality, works great as a team and works even harder to build good relationships with her clients. In her spare time, Denise enjoys holidays, scuba diving, snorkelling and chilling in the sun. denise@guidesforbrides.co.uk

Wedding Fair Co-ordinator and Administrator – Jackie Melotti
Jackie is responsible for all of the administration relating to our Wedding Fairs; liaising with venues and clients, putting floor plans together and much, much more. With Jackie, speed and accuracy is always a priority and fitting in as much as she can within her part-time hours is always her goal. jackie@guidesforbrides.co.uk

Accounts – Trudi D’Angeli

Trudi is our longest serving member of staff and has been with Guides for Brides on and off for many years in various administration roles before undergoing an extensive training programme to enable her to take on full responsibility of accountancy within Guides for Brides. trudi@guidesforbrides.co.uk

Jess

Social Media and Digital Marketing – Jess Lancaster

Jess is our Social Media and Digital Marketing Intern. Joining in September 2014 fresh from Bristol University, she has a passion for weddings, writing and social media. Her day to day role ranges from tweeting the latest wedding gossip, putting together inspirational Pinterest boards, to writing editorial content for the website, and we are delighted to have such a great talent choosing to start their career with us. jess@guidesforbrides.co.uk

Social Media Intern – Poppy Deacon

Poppy joined the Guides for Brides team in January 2016 as the Social Media intern for part of her gap year before she goes to university in September. She is passionate about social media and blogging and loves to keep up to date with the latest wedding trends. Her role includes posting daily inspiration to Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest as well as writing for the blog. poppy@guidesforbrides.co.uk

Our story

Guides for Brides was created in May 1995 when when founder, and director, Alison Hargreaves was both a bride-to-be and the owner of a wedding cake company. As a bride she found it hard to source local wedding businesses and as a wedding business she found it hard to get in front of local brides. She had the unique position of being able to see both sides of a problem that had a clear solution, and she set out to resolve it.

Guides for Brides originally launched as locally printed wedding guides, listing every local wedding business, supported by relevant advertising and distributed by a wide network of supporters within the industry, from venues and bridal shops to wedding fairs and networking events. Although these original guides still thrive and provide an essential part of the marketing mix for many local wedding businesses, Guide for Brides was quick to switch it’s attention to the internet and was a very early adopter of this new technology, launching an online version in 1998 and securing many important domain names such as www.weddinginformation.co.uk in the process.

Our biggest obstacle in the switch from print media to on-line media was taking our team of loyal and enthusiastic staff with us, despite having no previous knowledge or experience of the internet between them. We have continued to train our team in all that is important in the digital era – particularly the importance of Social Media – and many of this training will be shared with our clients at the first UK Wedding Industry Conference on 5th February 2015 where we aim to pass on much that we have learnt, to our customers.

Our offices

Our team is lucky to be based in a traditionally designed barn, built to modern specifications and with high speed communications, within a designated Area of Outstanding Beauty. This haven is less than an hour from London and we feel there can be few nicer environments to inspire creativity and happiness in the work place. A green environment around us has been pivotal in inspiring a commitment to a green policy within the business and we consider our impact on the environment in all that we do.

Our office is open from 9am to 5pm Monday to Friday, however our website and social media are active 24/7 and there is usually at least one of us available via Twitter, Facebook, our Forum or email to answer queries outside normal office hours.

Thank you for taking the time to find out a little more about Guides for Brides. If there is anything we haven’t answered here our Director, Alison Hargreaves, would be pleased to hear from you by email or by telephone: 01235 770078.

About us

Our Philosophy

Our Clients

Our Brides

Our credentials (excuse us while we brag a little…)

Our team

Meet the faces behind Guides for Brides:

Account Manager – Denise Huff

Our story

Our offices

Related posts

Find a supplier

About us

Our Philosophy

Our Clients

Our Brides

Our credentials (excuse us while we brag a little…)

Our team

Meet the faces behind Guides for Brides:

Account Manager – Denise Huff

Our story

Our offices

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Find a supplier

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