WOW, what can I say!?! We just had 2 amazing days at the IOV Convention in Coventry.
Niels was on the wedding question time panel first thing on Wednesday morning, an hour and a half of questions to help our fellow videographers. We then had some time to go check out the exhibition, or so we thought. The moment we came out of the question time session, we were grabbed by BBC Radio Coventry for an interview going out live on the breakfast program regarding the MCPS Awards and our Trash the Dress clip. Afterwards we were also asked for another slightly more elaborate interview that would be broadcasted the next morning. Managed to get a quick bite to eat and then  it was time to give our seminar on Key Ingredients to Beautiful Films. The room was packed, people were even standing at the back. We were obviously very pleased with the turn out and from the reactions we received afterwards, it looked liked the attendants really enjoyed it too. After the seminar so many people kept chatting to us about the ideas we had given them. Time to go the Awards reception, met up with some very kind videographers, some of them we already knew from the professional video forums, so it was nice to put a face to the names. The awards ceremony itself had a little hick up, somehow they had managed to forget to bring the awards! Quite funny really! We had entered some of our work in 3 categories: the Musical Marriage Awards, the IOV Open Category and the IOV Best Wedding Day Film. I already knew we were short listed for the 2 latter competitions, so I would at least leave with a ‘highly commended’ award. Well, it turned quite good for us. We were a runner up in the Musical Marriage Award for our Trash the Dress clip, receiving a £100 cheque. In the Open Category, where there were entries from the whole videography industry with big budget productions, we were awarded 2nd place for our Showreel! Quite chuffed with that one. But the best was yet to come with the Best Wedding Day Film category: WE WON 1ST PLACE!!!  It was the first year that we entered any of our work into the awards and to have won 1st place, it was  fabulous! I don’t think I’ve ever been this popular! I also immediately texted a message to Claire and Brian, the stars of the winning wedding video, who very pleasantly surprised (just like me).
Day 2 of the convention, I was still on cloud 9. I was so surprised by the number of people congratulating us, I was so happy! We had to give our seminar again, it was fun to be introduced as the award winner. Yet again, after the seminar we had plenty of people come up to us to thank us for all information and ideas and congratulate us with the award. Niels finally managed to get a quick look around the exhibition and then it was my turn to sit on the question time panel which was actually a lot of fun, not quite as scary as I had imagined. After that we had to head back to home to Sheffield, had a quick take away and fell asleep.
Back to reality now, I have wedding videos to edit!

our Award for Claire & Brian's wedding video

Our Award for our Showreel in the Open Category