Wedding Blog

This weekend, newly engaged bridesmaid L and I experienced one of our first rites of passage as brides to be—the local bridal extravaganza!

We arrived pretty early (about one hour after it began) and were quite surprised that there were so many girls up and milling around already. Seriously, there were a lot of engaged ladies there!

Anyhow, before we could get too overwhelmed, we decided to take a strategic approach and walk up and down the aisles, booth by booth, so as not to miss anything. The vendors represented everything from local venues, to photographers and videographers, to honeymoon hot spots. They were particularly helpful to L since she was just starting her planning. Although I have most of my vendors on the lock down, I was also able to find a few fabulous resources that I didn’t know were out there (more on them later).

Since I’ve been planning almost exclusively via the internet, it was pretty cool to see actual examples of linens, place settings, and florals all set up:

While we didn’t stay for it, the expo also featured a fashion show later that afternoon. We were both pretty beat (since we may have stayed out a bit past our bedtimes the night before) so after we had passed the last booth, we decided to call it a day. We each left with two big bags of swag (awesome!) and a bunch of new ideas.

All in all, I’m pretty glad we went to the show and would recommend attending one of these expos to any bride to be who is just starting out her planning, or who is simply looking for a very bride-y (albeit cheesy) way to spend a Sunday afternoon.

Have you managed to gain any vendors/tips/inspiration from your local bridal shows?