Weddingbee

Part I

Bridal shows and wedding websites often sell “lead lists” of registrant contact information to vendors who want to purchase them. That means you could be receiving tons of unsolicited email, mail, and phone calls simply by attending a bridal show or signing up for a wedding website.

While bridal shows can be a valuable resource when planning your wedding, it’s important that you know how to protect your personal information by taking some basic precautions beforehand.

This article from Oracleband and this one from Wedding Planning offer some great bridal show tips on maximizing the experience (wearing comfortable shoes, bringing your fiance/friend) while protecting yourself from the deluge of spam that may be inevitable. Before attending a show they suggest:

1. Creating a free email account specifically for your wedding.
2. Renting a PO box.
3. Creating a voicemail box.

This way you can shut down any wedding related accounts whenever you want to and receive as much information as you can. Still while creating a new email address is certainly feasible, renting a po box and setting up a voicemail seems like an awful lot of trouble just to attend bridal shows.

That being said not all bridal shows sell lead lists - I had a wonderful experience with the recent Bridal Event at the Pierre. Perhaps your best bet is to contact the show’s organizers and find out what their policies are as far as lead lists. That way you know when you need to be extra careful when providing your contact information.

Bridal shows can be an excellent information gathering resource so I do recommend attending them; just be sure you know how to protect yourself from bridal spam while taking advantage of all the shows have to offer.

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