Starting up a magazine

We know Lorraine from twitter and are more than happy to share her story of how she started up her own wedding magazine! We hope this inspires other people out there who are thinking about starting up their own magazine too. Please feel free to share your comments below too!

“Originally both myself & my husband were from around the Nottingham area, although Mark moved to Desborough, Northamptonshire with his parents while he was still at school. We didn’t meet until 2004, then two years later I moved in with Mark, from my home in Nottingham to live in Rothwell.

We got married in 2008 at the Benefield Wheatsheaf in Upper Benefield, near Oundle and later that year had our first child, a daughter who is now 4 and attends West Lodge Day Nursery in Desborough, but will be starting school in September 2013 at Rushton Primary School.

Last year (2012) in May, we had a second child, a little boy who is just starting nursery, also at West Lodge, on two mornings a week.

Before having a family I worked full-time for a small computer software company in Nottingham for nearly 15 years, which I then left after taking Maternity Leave after the birth of my daughter. I then tried a few temporary part-time jobs since, as I wanted to put my daughter first and I then found a permanent part-time job at Kettering General Hospital as a Health Care Assistant on one of the wards for just over a year, before having our second baby, and then I decided not to go back after my 12 months Maternity Leave.

I’ve set up this magazine as my new ‘work from home’ job, so I can fit my work around my family, instead of trying to fit my family around my work! The idea really came from when we got married 5 years ago and how we struggled to find local suppliers or information on products and services in our area, especially as I didn’t know Northamptonshire very well at the time – and I did all our wedding organising myself!

The aim of my new magazine is to bring local suppliers to local couples. The magazine is free for anyone to pick up and take away and is distributed via several wedding suppliers across the county. There are articles and write-ups on products & businesses across Northamptonshire and also some information on other suppliers in the UK that can supply products online. Wedding suppliers then pay to advertise in my magazine & that then pays to get it published and distributed.

I am currently distributing the magazine myself and I am really enjoying visiting and talking to all sort of people in the wedding industry. I would really like to take it further and create more magazines for more counties and I plan to start with Leicestershire next, as living in Rothwell, Northamptonshire I am not far from the county border and I visit Market Harborough regularly, so it just seemed like the best county to take on next. I also plan to have an online directory that covers all counties across the UK, so people getting married can locate suppliers in their county easily.

I am always on the lookout for ideas for articles for my magazine and welcome any comments or suggestions. I’m also very active on Facebook & Twitter and have my own Blog. I’ve also just set up a forum to go alongside my magazine & website – so very busy keeping it all up-to-date. All that and still looking after my 2 young children. I sometimes end up replying to emails and writing magazine articles late at night as that’s when I get my free time!”

Website:- http://www.localweddingconnections.co.uk/home/northamptonshire/ 

Facebook:- https://www.facebook.com/LocalWeddingConnections

Twitter:- https://twitter.com/LocalWedConnect

 

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