08.25.08

The Baltimore Bridal Expo

Posted in wedding planning at 3:29 pm by eighty5original

I finally have some free time to write about the Baltimore Bridal Expo that I attended on August 17th. I was busy taking an Adobe Flash CS3 course in DC last week and then I was in Berkeley Springs, West Virginia for a family reunion with my fiance. But now I’m back and ready to write!

I had purchased advanced tickets online at baltimorebridalexpo.com since they were $8 as opposed to $10 at the door. I thought I was being thrifty, but it turns out that we could have gotten in for free as there were at least three people that tried to give us tickets as we made our way to the Marriot waterfront hotel. Before getting in line we registered for raffle tickets and a years subscription to Modern Bride. We got a cute red “bride to be” pin and a page of tickets with our personal identification number on them, these are supposed to be deposited into each booth’s box for the chance to win a prize; anything from a nice gift basket to a honeymoon trip!

Photo credit: Elizabeth Malby, The Baltimore Sun

The layout was a bit deceiving because when you first enter into the exhibition, the booths are set up in a long hallway, so once we got to the end I thought that was all there was. But really, there were ten times as many booths inside the ballroom. There was such a variety of vendors at the event, 130 in all, I think that the only thing that was missing were caterers. There were all kinds of vendors; DJs, stationery, makeup and hair artists, florists, photographers, cakes, and a couple of passion party booths. I loved that the bakeries had samples of cake flavors! That was a nice treat. There was also a fashion show with bridal gown styles, bridesmaid dresses, tux styles, and flower girl dresses. They showed a good variety, but I didn’t see anything I loved all too much, the styles weren’t very modern.

In the end I didn’t win anything.. but I’m still waiting for a call from the 25,000 prize from Tux! All in all the expo was really fun and informative. I got a ton of samples, freebies, and information take aways. Here we are in the middle of the ballroom with all the action around us.

I will say that the raffle contests could have been done better. Some of the vendors didn’t even know that they were supposed to have a raffle ticket box. It was difficult to find out if you had won anything. You were supposed to walk around to each booth after each fashion show after they had done the drawing, where you would check to see if your number was written on the box. Some vendors had the numbers blocked, hadn’t done their drawing yet, etc. Plus it was really crowded because everyone was trying to get to the same place.

I am having a good old time going through all of my stuff to see if there are any deals I want to take advantage of. Thanks Katie for coming with me!!!

Cheesy picture of Katie and I with our pins and “diamond engagement rings”

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