As I plan my wedding, I am learning more and more about myself. For one, I am not the typical bride. I am decisive but pretty laid back. I don't think this in my one chance to be princess for the day. And apparently, I wasn't born with the bridal gene.
I went to a bridal show with my mom. I knew nothing about them or what to expect, but I figured that this would be the easiest way to see/meet the local vendors in my area without having to call/email/carrier pigeon each individual one. The trade-off being that they blast your email and send you 'cute' stuff in the mail. Anyway, it was from 1 - 5pm and I figured that we could get there by 3 and knock it out. My mother insisted that we get there no later than 1:15pm. Not that she is a crazy mother of the bride, she just hates being late for anything.
We get there at 1:30 because I had to make a quick detour for coffee and we go to every. single. vendor. Overall, most of the people were...eh. I thought it was funny though how I would start looking through someone's portfolio and see the standard, industry glossy photos. I guess they would not see the normal, gushing reaction and start questioning me about my plans. One cake lady pulls this album out of nowhere. It is filled with all of these multi-shaped, magnificent, colorful cakes. It was weird how a lot the vendors had these secret books of their "more creative" projects hidden away. It was like you had to say a special password to see them. One even told me that she doesn't keep it out because most brides don't want to see them because it scares them, but those are the kind of projects that they like doing most + they are usually the coolest brides. I hear ya.
My only really bad interaction was with this bridal & evening wear dress place. The night before I looked at their site and I saw that they did custom work; I wanted to make sure that I got a chance to talk to them. When I go over and start describing my dress to her....1930s, satin, cowl neck, amazing back...she looks at me in horror and says that she had never seen anything like that at any of the buying shows she has gone to. I am like, 'that's great!' - thinking no one will have a dress like mine. She then lowers her voice as if telling me a secret and says "when you look at your wedding pictures 10 years from now, you don't want to think that you made a mistake and went with something too trendy" I answer her back in the same whisper, "It is not that trendy if it is from the 1930s." Icky, icky woman.
The fashion show was about to start, so my mom and I take our seats and of course all the dresses featured were from the same bridal shop. Crap...where's the bar? Got my glass of red wine and now I am ready. My mom was cracking me up the entire time since she cannot really whisper and had an opinion about every poofy dress and model. Then they did this dramatization about a prince, fairies, multi-colored tulle, magic wands and...actually I don't know what it was about. I zoned out.
The moral of the story is that bridal shows are a good place to see your vendor options and get a grasp of rates in your area. You will probably earn yourself a tote bag and other free novelties that will end up in your junk drawer. Oh, and there is usually a raffle drawing at the end, but you have to make it through the fashion shows. Wine helps.
