Bridal Spectacular 2016
We participated in another bridal show in January, and this one was BIG. Three hundred brides (plus their guests) attended the event at the Sioux City Convention Center. Thankfully we had an entire day before the event to set up our booth, because we needed it.
Here is our booth when we started….BORING, ugly space, right? Not for long.
We had decided on a Garden Party theme for our booth - partly because it was so frigid outside that we wanted to give people a brief escape, and partly because elegant garden party themed weddings are “in” this year. So we decked out our booth with flowers, lush greenery, café lights, plants, bouquets, and included a simple tablescape. One of our favorite items was the “hanging centerpiece", which we built to suspend above the table, and we filled it with flowers and greens. These types of hanging installations are all over the style boards right now, and we wanted to show it off!
Many bride and grooms came to our softly lit, sweet smelling (people just couldn’t get over the natural fragrances from the flowers and greens), and lovely booth to talk flowers. We had a sign up for a drawing to win flowers at our upcoming Valentine’s Day sale, we held an informative talk on the Wedding Colors of 2016, we showcased our array of luxurious bouquets, boutineers, corsages, and hair flowers, and we set up wedding consults. Our bouquets were even featured in the fashion show and carried by the models. This was a great chance for people to see how much fresh flowers can add to your wedding ensemble!
We were pleased to have a two-page spread in the Siouxland Brides Magazine which was handed out to every attendee. Our prior blog has the article - 33 Ways to Include Flowers in Your Wedding. I highly suggest anyone getting ready to go to a Wedding Consult with a florist to read it so you can brainstorm your dream list of flowers for your wedding day.
While we were at the show, we took advantage of so many wedding vendors in one area and networked with many of the venues and suppliers. We will be collaborating with many of them in the upcoming wedding season, so it was nice to put faces with names. We enjoyed another show next to our favorite wedding photographer couple, Shane and Becca Monahan of Shane Monahan Photography. They are the best, most fun, talented photographers ever and it was a pleasure to be placed next to their booth at yet another show. The best part was that they had agreed to do a wedding style photo shoot for us the following day out in the snow to make use of our already made up bouquets. It was a wonderful way to put our flowers to use for marketing in the future and to build up our wedding portfolio. Brides always love looking through our photos for ideas and the pictures we got from the shoot are INCREDIBLE. They'll be in an upcoming blog, so stay tuned! Here is a speedy preview because I’m too impatient to wait to share them!
At the end of the bridal show we were tired and frozen to the bone (as it was a -14 degrees when we set out for the show!) and all talked out, but we did what we always do and sat down to eat cake samples that the vendors brought us while feeling grateful for all the interested people who stopped into our little booth. Yes, this is wedding shows…..exhaustion, sugar, beauty, talking, and more talking and then loading and more unloading. Our next show is in Omaha on March 13th. We are already starting to plan!