Attending a wedding expo an important step in the wedding planning process.
A wedding business is a small business and most of the time you are talking to the owner of that business. Attending a wedding show strips away all of the marketing and social media magic and gives you an opportunity to really get to know the person behind the marketing.
Unlike buying a phone where you walk out with a tangible product, knowing what you're getting because it is mass produced, a wedding is a unique product each time and you should know the person responsible for that distinctive part of your wedding. Attending a wedding expo is an opportunity to dig deeper than the skill and see if you trust this person on a business level to communicate with you, be reliable, and in the end deliver what is promised without adding undue stress to an already intense planning period.
How do you prepare for a bridal show?
Going to a wedding expo is a firehose of information and it can be overwhelming so don’t come alone, bring family and friends. More specifically bring family and friends that can supplement and compliment your decision-making process. If you are an impulsive decision maker, bring someone that is an analytic to balance out and see things you don’t see. You will find the vendor that meets all of your needs, there is no reason to sacrifice. If everyone in your group likes them and the service is good, you have found the one!
You will be meeting many vendors within a span of only a few hours. Create a process to sort vendors and a process to make notes about vendors after you walk away from a booth.
Each encounter at a booth should be a mini job interview lasting 3 to 5 mins. Just like a job interview there are easy questions and difficult questions. Completing a full "interview" is the only way to gather all important information. After each booth, step away from the booth and talk to your group. Make short notes of what you liked and what you didn't like. Then sort that vendor into a category on the possibility of booking them in the future. You can set as many categories as you like as long as you understand the groups. With so many interviews the notes will be the only way to remember so much information, but all of it is important to planning a great wedding.
Questions to ask wedding vendors at a bridal show
Preparing questions is the most important and most overlooked step in the selection of wedding vendors. I believe it is because couples think they need to only ask questions about the vendors specialty and not knowing all that goes into that specialty they are unable to ask follow-up questions after the initial presentation of services.
I recommend is to ask general questions that will elicit a reply that will include not only information on their business practices in general but will also including information on their specialty.
For instance:
What sets your business apart from the other (Photographers, DJs, Caterers).
Why should I choose your company over (name a competitor that you liked).
Your price is higher than some others, what justifies that higher cost?
A reply to any of these questions will include information on the business structure, packages, specialty, ethics, and more. It also puts the responsibility on the vendor to inform and convince you rather than relying on you to know all of the ins and outs of the wedding industry.
While I do encourage a search online for questions in each vendor category, in the moment these questions are difficult to ask as they seem unnatural and robotic within a conversation. If you read over the questions for each category in advance and then ask some of the difficult general questions above, many of the online questions will come up naturally as a follow-up question.
What to do after a bridal show
Many of the highly sought after wedding vendors at the Buckeye Wedding Expo will fill their calendars quickly after the show, so follow-up is very important. With so many weddings and a limited number of premier wedding vendors in this area, a few weeks after the show the balance shifts from vendors trying to impress couples to couples trying to find vendors with open dates. This is especially true during the peak of wedding season in this area which is around the end of summer and fall.
My recommendation is to quickly schedule a consultation with any vendor that impressed you. That will keep the experience with them fresh in your mind, while also making sure your date remains available with that vendor. This will also give you an opportunity to experience the business practices and communication of that vendor. Poor communication or clunky business practices will be frustrating during the planning process and businesses that don’t reply at this stage will be slower to act during the height of wedding season and should be avoided at all costs.
There is no reason to sacrifice what you want in a wedding vendor. If you prepare for the expo, ask the right questions, and follow-up afterwards you will find the perfect vendor for you!
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