You may wonder, is it worth it to participate in a Bridal Show?

Is it real­ly worth your while to buy a booth, spend the whole day talk­ing to prospec­tive wed­ding clients and hope you get a few leads?

The short answer is, it depends.

Casey of Flower Duet at Bridal Show

Casey Schwartz, co-own­er with her sis­ter of Flower Duet, dis­plays some of her work at the Shade Hotel’s annu­al Wed­ding Fes­ti­val in Man­hat­tan Beach on Sun­day, Jan­u­ary 12, 2020.
(Pho­to by Axel Koester, Con­tribut­ing Photographer)

Once upon a time, wed­ding cou­ples only had one option to learn about wed­ding ven­dors: attend­ing bridal shows. Wed­ding ven­dors attend­ed many dif­fer­ent types of wed­ding shows reg­u­lar­ly dur­ing ear­ly months of each cal­en­dar year known as “book­ing season.”

Now, with ven­dor web­sites, Google Busi­ness, Yelp, The Knot, Wed­ding Wire, Insta­gram and Face­book, wed­ding cou­ples don’t need to spend Sat­ur­day after­noons in a hotel ball­room meet­ing a pletho­ra of wed­ding ven­dors. They can let their “eyes” do the hard work online. These days, venues hold their own bridal shows to show off their cer­e­mo­ny spaces, bridal suites, ball­rooms and recep­tions spaces. So, instead of big con­ven­tion cen­ter style shows, we par­tic­i­pate in this small­er, venue-oper­at­ed shows.

Erin Cun­diff and her wed­ding plan­ner Mary Claire Orenic vis­it the Shade Hotel’s annu­al Wed­ding Fes­ti­val in Man­hat­tan Beach on Sun­day, Jan­u­ary 12, 2020.
(Pho­to by Axel Koester, Con­tribut­ing Pho­tog­ra­ph­er for the Dai­ly Breeze)

Reasons to Participate in a Bridal Show

We like to go for three rea­sons in the fol­low­ing order of impor­tance as well as meet­ing prospec­tive clients:

  1. Builds rela­tion­ships with venues. Most of the time, we part­ner with local venues to show our flow­ers at their pri­vate wed­ding shows. This does two things. It keeps us on their pre­ferred wed­ding ven­dor list which does give us lots of busi­ness. We get to show­case our flex­i­ble style by pro­vid­ing flow­ers for their table setups, cer­e­mo­ny setups and lounge areas in return for a “free” booth. It’s called an in-kind dona­tion and it works. We cre­at­ed flo­rals for the table setups and cer­e­mo­ny set­up at The Shade Hotel for its bridal show in Jan­u­ary of 2020 and Casey was fea­tured in our local paper, The Dai­ly Breeze!
  2. Builds rela­tion­ships with ven­dors. We’ve met some of our favorite DJs, wed­ding plan­ners, make­up artists and bak­ers at wed­ding shows. It’s use­ful to get to know all types of local ven­dors so you can rec­om­mend them when your own clients ask for help. Par­tic­i­pat­ing in wed­ding shows helps you net­work with all types of event vendors.
  3. Learn about what trends are res­onat­ing with cou­ples. Most cou­ples take about a year to plan their wed­dings. What will be trendy in a year might be real­ly dif­fer­ent from what is trendy now. We dis­play lots of dif­fer­ent “themes” on our tables to see how peo­ple react. This helps us gauge where trends are going!

The Shade Hotel hosts its annu­al Wed­ding Fes­ti­val in Man­hat­tan Beach on Sun­day, Jan­u­ary 12, 2020. Flower Duet did the table dis­plays for the venue.
(Pho­to by Axel Koester, Con­tribut­ing Pho­tog­ra­ph­er for The Dai­ly Breeze)