Hey, everyone! I hope you’ve all had a great start to the year and have been working on your 2016 goals. At the beginning of January, I started working full-time again so please excuse my absence! One of my personal goals for the year was to begin planning our wedding. Brian and I are in a unique situation because we want to get married in Fall 2017 and have quite a while to go. Though, for someone who’s never planned a party in her life, I have felt a bit lost and wondering where do I even begin?
I knew the venue was my top priority since we need to set an actual date and book our location. But, where do I find venues? I began doing some online research and quickly became overwhelmed. My sister suggested to go to bridal shows – in New England they all seem to take place in January. So far, I’ve been to two shows this month and attending proved to be extremely beneficial! If you’re like me and this is the first task your attacking, I’ve got some tips to keep in mind!
Bring Water – There are plenty of samples to try while browsing vendor booths and you will absolutely need a drink, so bring along a bottle of water.
Dress Comfortably – You’re going to be on your feet for 1-2 hours so wear a pair of sneakers and leave your jackets behind because it gets warm.
Create Labels – Almost every booth wants you to write down your information. Be prepared and print out labels beforehand with the important contact info so you’re not wasting 10 minutes filling out a card. (I didn’t do this and really wish I had!)
Take Information – Even if you’re not interested in certain booths or vendors, take their informational packets anyway. Once you get home and you have a chance to look through everything you may find some hidden inspiration!
After attending two bridal shows, I’m in no way an expert nor do I ever intend to be but I do have a success story of sorts! I went into these shows solely looking for venue options and was a bit disappointed in the lack of information. While walking through I noticed a photographer that had pictures displayed at several locations I admired. Little did I realize, this was absolutely the perfect photographer for us! We haven’t officially booked her yet, but after speaking for the past week we know she’s the one. Here are some quick shots I took of other inspirational booths throughout both days.
It’s exciting to see things beginning to fall into place and I can’t wait to give you more details as plans become finalized. Taking the time to attend these bridal expo’s absolutely got me excited to plan our wedding when I initially felt overwhelmed. I highly suggest this as a starting point but if there aren’t any happening in your area at this time, buy some wedding magazines and start a realistic Pinterest board! Now, I have quite a large stack of vendor information to sort through and I should start sooner rather than later! 😉
Have you ever been to a bridal expo and did you hire anyone you met there? Share in the comments!
Bridal expos can be very overwhelming. Thanks for sharing these tips. I have a few friends planning for their big day so I’ll be sure to send this over to them.
Hope these quick tips will help make their expo day go smoothly! 🙂
We are always here to help you guys if you need! However, I know you will do a great job with or without help. ❤️
Thank you, Aunt Ronda!! <3
This is so exciting!!! I can’t wait to see how things pan out for you over the next year or so! I had a long engagement too, so I know how overwhelming it can get.
Thanks, Haley! We planned on the long engagement to avoid the overwhelming feeling so let’s just hope we gave ourselves enough time! 😉
How exciting! Congratulations on your engagement. I’m a planning addict, so I can’t wait until I get married (if ever haha). Great post!
Thanks, Amy! 🙂 I think my problem is the overwhelming amount of choices I have to choose between for every vendor, etc.
Congratulations on your upcoming wedding! Bridal expos have changed since I got married almost 19 years ago! LOL But we did find our cake at the expo we attended. Our baker had beautiful cakes that tasted great too! I love your idea about having pre-printed labels to save time writing your contact info. Brilliant! I’m sure between Pinterest, bridal expos and magazines you’ll find everything you need!
Thanks, LaKisha! I went to one of the shows with my mom and she was so excited to see how everything is handled these days 😉
Congrats lovely! Great tips!! Looks like you have beautiful taste!!
Thank you so much! 🙂
Great post! I had no idea what I was doing when I got married 10 years ago, but it all worked out. Wish I had these kind of resources back then 🙂 Great post!
Thanks, Hera! I’m very thankful to have so many resources 🙂
WOw! I did not know there were bridal expos… I mean, I knew they excisted but I thought they were wholesale. It looks like so much fun and stress to plan a wedding… Im glad you found a photographer 🙂
xoxo
Novelstyle
A month ago I didn’t even realize bridal shows were a thing either! 😉
Hey I know your excited for the wedding. A great website to use to help you plan is theknot.com
They have lots of tools and resources to help you through the process.
Congratulation!
Thanks, Tanashia! I joined The Knot and love their site 🙂
My greatest limitation when I was wedding planning was my budget. Because I knew that I likely wouldn’t be able to afford a lot of the venues I’d see advertised at Bridal Shows, I didn’t go because I didn’t want to get my heart set on something I didn’t have. I found a wedding planning Facebook group for my area and found a lot of really amazing vendors for photography, catering, etc. that were upstarts and a little more affordable than what I’d see at a larger-scale event. Now that I’ve already walked down the aisle, though, I want to go to a bridal show just for fun.
I recently got engaged (right before Christmas) and I’m excited to get the planning started. I’ve started to look at venues but only online. The wedding is going to take place in my hometown in Oklahoma but I currently live in Pennsylvania so it’s going to be interesting and probably a little stressful to get everything sorted out. I’ve never been to any bridal expos but I’d like to, at least once. Good luck with everything!
One other wedding planning tip: create a wedding-specific email address for all the vendors and wedding-related stuff (like michelleandbrian2017@blahblahblah.com) – that way you can keep all your wedding stuff in one inbox.
LOVE the idea of the labels – huge timesaver @ bridal shows!
Best of luck planning 🙂
Congratulations on your wedding dear!! Very exciting!!! 🙂
Xoxo,
Love from http://www.trangscorner.com {a lifestyle, fashion, beauty, and food blog}
How exciting, wedding planning must be so fun
xo
http://www.laurajaneatelier.com
Congrats on the upcoming wedding!
Fashion Soup
Congratulations! I can’t wait to read more about your wedding planning. I have a friend who just got engaged and is planning on getting married in fall 2017 as well. I think autumn is such a lovely time of year to get married! x Natalie http://www.thegirlwithbangs.com
Printing labels so you don’t have to fill out cards by hand is BRILLIANT! Don’t forget to take some time to stand back, and just enjoy being engaged! Congrats!
It is so overwhelming to figure it all out! We’ve been engaged for a month today and have a couple of venue tours this afternoon. The first thing I did was order The Knot’s planning binder. I love my checklists, but I’ve never done this before so figuring out what needs to be done is key. I would love to attend an expo in my planning, but with a destination wedding the ones in my area won’t have any vendors I can actually hire. Best of luck to you and your fiance!
Michelle,
That’s funny that you say a lot of the shows are happening now because I have literally been hearing them nonstop advertised on the radio for this weekend and one in 2 weeks in our area. So funny. I guess there is just a season for when things happen and unless you are a part of it you just don’t pay much attention. I love the lanterns. You will see me doing a lot with candles as my couple’s budget didn’t allow for a lot with flowers. I can’t wait for your feedback. The series will be the week of Valentines and it starts off with the photographer Q & A. Glad you already feel connected with someone. That is a hard thing to find. I can’t wait to see more posts as you tackle other areas of the planning process.
Jenn