When I bought my ticket this time last year for BritMums Live I had no idea what to expect. In all honesty I wanted to go to meet some of my blogger friends, have some time away from the boys to be myself and chat with a few brands. Never did I know I would learn so much in such a short amount of time about not only my blog by myself.
I'm normally a shy and reserved person. It might not seem that way online as I have a screen in front of me and can generally make any situation funny with my stupidity, but in reality I'm shy and self conscious. I went into this not knowing what to really expect and how I was going to say hi to all those bloggers I really loved!
I headed down on the Thursday to meet up with Abi who I run #pbloggers with. The alcohol flowed, the chat didn't stop and after drinking a considerable amount and wolfing down pizza we crashed in bed at 1am.
Friday we woke up bright and early, got ready and headed to Starbucks for some brekkie. When we got back we found a lovely Irish blogger stranded in the hotel reception as she was too early for check in so we took her up to our room (along with some others later in the day!) to rest before registration started at 2. In that time I sped over to Waterloo to meet Helen, my blog twin (she blogs at Mummy to the Max!). Then we went to registration...
The People
Let's just say that I met so many amazing people that I don't think I can even list them all! Notably the wonderful
Helen,
Abi,
Kerry,
James,
Lotte,
Michelle,
Vikki,
Kara (both of them!),
Hannah,
Kirsty and Clara. It was lovely to catch up with local bloggers whilst meeting those that live just that bit too far away to see as much as most of us would like.
Bloggers are a strange type. We spend most of our time in front of computer screens or camera lenses for a hobby or living so when so many of us come together it's a mass of selfies and 'OH MY GOD I RECOGNISE YOU FROM INSTAGRAM'. We are such a diverse range that even chatting over drinks at the hotel bar left me with learning new things that I never imagined to. To all those I met, thank you for being so lovely, thank you for being kind and all of you are fabulous.
The Workshops/Talks
Looking at the timetable there was so much to choose each day. Every morning started out with a wonderful keynote to inspire us. We were all roaring with laughter from Emma Freud and sobbing with Benjamin Brooks-Dutton. Both these people gave an amazing insight into the power that blogging can do. Whether that be to help charities, help people or just give a voice to someone that wouldn't normally be able to. I left feeling full of bright ideas and a new found confidence.
Beyond that I attended a talk by Lucy of Capture by Lucy where she explained all about blog design and how to make everything look gorgeous. I left wanting to reconsider my blog design and tweak bits here and there. Especially as I'm in the middle of designing my photography website.
The Pinterest talk left me knowing the best ways to use it with my blog, how to do things that I didn't even know you could do and how to actually gain traffic from there. I'm one of those people that use it for that wedding of their dreams.
Etsy did a great talk about affiliate marketing, whilst they have spoken with me before about affiliate schemes I didn't really know what the benefits could be (not too sure though that some of the things that were said were 100% correct from the blogger they brought with them).
I learnt all about the power of food styling. It's something that I know I need to up my game in photography wise. I'm great with people but still life has always either bored me or I'm too hungry to take photos. Learning the tips and tricks I did will hopefully bring those recipes to life that I'm trying to put on here!
As well as learning loads I spoke with many amazing brands. I got to speak to the lovely James from Butlins all about my amazing break. May have bored him by going on about how much we loved it (we really did!) and how much we would love to be picked again (we would very much so!) and I picked up one of the famous personalised Coke bottles that I cant bring myself to drink.
BritMums was an experience that I loved to pieces. I came out of my little, shy shell and spent so much time chatting and having fun with people that the goodbyes were so sad and honestly I'm considering buying my ticket for next year. In the meanwhile I'm going to try and up my game with attending things, work on my content and blog, find my voice again a bit and take on board everything that inspired me to be the best blogger I can. Thank you BritMums for an amazing weekend!
