Love. Live. Laugh. Wed.

I convinced my mom and sister to join me at our very first bridal show last weekend. I've wanted to go to a bridal show since about ten seconds after I got that ring on my finger. Why? Mostly to win stuff, but it also seemed like it would be pretty fun! A few shows came and went but we were always busy and had other plans that kept us from going.


Finally, I saw there was going to be a bridal show in Binghamton February 21st. I cleared our schedule and called my mom to tell her ask her if she would come. She and my sister both agreed to come so I quickly pre-registered. I was one of the first 300 brides to pre-register so I got 2 chances to win the giveaways. I read up on the experiences other brides have had at bridal shows and took a tip from Miss Snow and printed out some address labels.

So, on the 21st we found ourselves here:

Win a 7 day honeymoon? Yes, please!

As soon as we got there my mom excitedly asked if I had my address labels ready. Crap, I had forgotten them. Bridal Show Fail #1.

We stopped by most of the tables concentrating on reception venues, photographers and anything with food or candy. Our main focus right now is to find a venue. Until we do that we can't really pick a date or book any other vendors.

One vendor was there with a photobooth set up so my sister and I decided to give it a go. While we were waiting, we discussed how awesome it would be to have a photobooth at the wedding. We get in and the attendant starts telling us about how the booth works and to make sure we look at the camera, not at the screen. I doubted that we'd be able to do it and we laughed through the entire process. Here's the result:
When we got out we were hysterically laughing and my sister decided that we had to have one at the wedding and she would be getting it for us. I never expected to hold her to this because I've spent enough time browsing wedding blogs to know how expensive they are, but apparently she didn't know. Anyway, we picked up our photo strips and headed on our way to embarrass ourselves a little more.

We browsed some wedding dresses on display, tasted some yummy food from Terra Cotta Catering and Cakes for Every Occasion and found our way to another embarrassing situation.

We found a reception venue booth that was near my mom's house that looked gorgeous. As I was writing down my contact info, my mom had the following conversation with the venue guy:

Mom: "Oh, my husband's niece works there!"
Venue Guy: " Oh really? What's her name?"
"Sandy."
*confused look* "I don't think we have a Sandy"
Sister: "Her name's probably not really Sandy, she's probably got the name wrong"
"No, I'm sure it's Sandy. It's definitely Sandy"
"Do you mean Joann?"
"Oh, yeah, Joann. I think it is Joann."
Me: "Alright, I think it's time to go"

Once again my sister and I walked away hysterically laughing. I'm pretty sure that guy thought we were crazy, but oh well.

By this time, we had seen most of the vendors but still needed to wait around another hour or so for the grand prize giveaway. So we made our way to the bar, got a few drinks and looked for a place to sit. We drank, looked through some of the one million pamphlets that I had managed to collect and laughed a little more. (It was at this point I managed to find that photobooth pamphlet and let me sister know that the gift she'd promised us was going to run her about $1,000. She politely retracted her offer.)

When we made our way back into the main room for the honeymoon giveaway, it was packed. They listed off the winners of a few giveaways and none of them were me. :( After that we high-tailed it out of there and went to get some dinner.

And so ends Part I of the bridal show saga. Part II will include some info on potential vendors and much less embarrassing story telling.