Weddingbee boards

Wow. I attended my first (and hopefully only) bridal show today, and I. Am. Exhausted. My back hurts. My feet hurt. Shoot - even my eyes hurt. The only large ticket items we still need are a bakery, transportation, menswear, and honeymoon location, and even with only getting brochures from those places, my backpack weighs A TON. I honestly cannot even imagine having gone at the beginning stages of planning, as I think it would have been overwhelming to me. But I can definitely see how it would be useful to some people.

I definitely ruled out some bakeries - why in the world they would bring dried out cake to a bridal show is beyond me! I was also incredibly amused by the horrified look on the David's Bridal representative when I told him that my bridesmaids are picking their own knee-length purple dresses, and that no, I seriously don't consider if the color, fabric, or style match.

Overall, I'd recommend going to a bridal show if one is in your area, but brace yourself - there will likely be a lot of people there.

@Bella13 - Honestly, it was all such a blur that I was just blindly grabbing brochures! I'm going to go through my bag of goodies now. I'm *really* glad that I set up a bridal-show-specific email address ahead of time, though. I can definitely envision getting overwhelmed by spam had I not, as I entered basically every single contest anyone was offering. And while I resisted the candy at most of the booths, my sweet tooth was definitely satisfied by the 7-8 cake tasting opportunities. I would advise bringing a bottle of water - I was *really* thirsty by the time we were done. And bring a durable tote bag or backpack. They gave us a disposable plastic bag when we entered, and I'm pretty sure I would have lost circulation in all of my fingers had I needed to rely on that for my 15 pounds of stuff.

i went to one last weekend, and i totally agree--i was so exhausted! it was a really small one too, and we also have most our vendors already so i was mostly just looking, but still, i was so tired after! and i totally agree that the cake sampling was key--we ruled out all 3 bakers who were there. 

@RxBrideToBe - That's a really good idea. I'm pretty far along in my planning, but a friend of mine came with me and she's barely started anything wedding-related. I'm totally passing along your strategy!