Bridal Shows - What To Expect?

[ndnyhagen]

Ladies,
I am counting on your wise counsel and wisdom.... I''ll be attending my very first bridal show tomorrow at the Bass Hall, here in Fort Worth. (D Wedding''s Bridal Show 2006) Having zero experience with any of these shows and being the ultimate planner that I am: Do any of you have any good tips on what I can do to make the most of this show? The show hours are 11:00a.m. to 5:30p.m.. There will be drawings and give aways of all sorts. In your experience, does it pay to get to these shows at the start time and stay until the end? (Seems like information overload to attend for 6 1/2 hours!) Do you recommend bringing your wedding planning binder along? I may just grab an empty portfolio in order to better organize the information I''m sure will be provided from the vendors.
I''m sure post-show that I''ll be on every bridal mailing list imaginable...

Did those of you that attended your local shows find tremendous value in the information you received at the show and the subsequent mailers that were sent to you afterwards? Mom just volunteered to fly in for any future shows that seem interesting. Is it worth her trouble to come to these shows with me?
As always, I appreciate your tuttelage on all things Bridal. I look very much forward to all of your replies.
Thank you!

 

[Mara]

ndy...i only went to two and they were pretty much the same honestly, i think it may depend on where you live, the size of the show etc. here in san jose which is not a tiny town (we are 11th largest city in the US) it was mostly just local vendors, venues, and things like that, which was helpful to speak to them...also i took alot of collateral home with me. it was great to see things like the florist's work in person, and the cakemakers actual cakes, and the photographers and all that, we walked the show very fast because there was not THAT much to see...it did help get me initial ideas on what i was interested in, visually was able to see what i liked and didn't like, make sure to take something to take notes in but i wouldn't get as detailed as bringing your wedding binder. i also found that the vendors only had a few minutes if even that to talk to you about stuff, so it was just useful to get an idea of if you wanted to schedule a f/u to go visit with them in person...there are typically so many people that they don't have time to dedicate and if you are at a show like that, typically you ARE shopping for a wedding so it's not like most of them are just browsers so the vendors are split many ways when chatting. also i was able to get basic pricing on most stuff to get a vague idea of how things worked for my budget.

hope this helps. honestly i admit to being a little disappointed...haha i was like THAT'S IT? i think they SEEM 'larger than life' when you have not been to one yet...and you always figure oh a bridal show is going to be so much fun! it was fun but i guess i just had high expectations..hehe. we were there about 2.5 hours. sure it was fun and all that but we went to two and then i was like okay im done, plus i had tons of information to sift through. i think if i went to the SF one or something it would have been a little bigger but not by that much. there are only so many local vendors!

oh in terms of things to ask...i just tried to be short and sweet, aka how far in advance do you recommend booking, we are thinking of XYZ date for our wedding, what is your basic range for a XYZ product, do you have a mailing list, do you have a card, can i take this packet of information, etc. that way they could tell me if that date i had in mind was too soon or if they were available (most of them knew)...what costs were, etc. then i could figure out if i wanted to ask more info.

 

[selflove]

Bridal expos are FUN!!!! I went to my first one 11 months before my wedding and I was a bit overwhelmed when I first entered but then as I was going through I decided to just focus on one vendor (photographer). That made it less overwhelming b/c I just ignored the DJs, etc.

My first questions, due to having a small budget, were actually not questions but descriptions of what I wanted and how much I could spend. If someone couldn''t meet my needs I didnt take any of their marketing materials and I moved on.

I found that vendors would talk as long as I stood there talking with them, so I thought it was important to be focused and keep moving.

At the next one I attended I focused on a DJ. That one was a huge event at the convention center in downtown LA. It would have been terribly overwhelming if I hadn''t already gotten my feet wet at the smaller bridal expo 2 months prior.

Do you need your mom to fly in....I dunno, I didn''t need anyone there with me to make decisions but we were also having a very small wedding.

Youll get a bag for all the materials youll collect so you probably dont need your planning binder, as it will just be one more thing to lug around. There is no way you could spend 6+ hours there, I dont think.

Have fun!!