I am so excited to be talking about my experience at last Sunday’s 2017 Clarksville Brides Wedding Fair! This is the first wedding fair I’ve done ever and I feel like it was a huge success! There is so much prep that goes into an event this important for your marketing and business so I wanted to share my experience and give a few insights for anyone else thinking about doing a bridal fair.
I first want to say what an incredible experience it was! I was so nervous and stressed out getting everything prepared and before brides arrived but as soon as I started talking to excited brides I was in the zone and no longer nervous. Any of my introverts know how I feel?
- The first thing I could say to anyone looking to participate in a bridal fair is to get your booth early. Most bridal fairs have an early registration deadline and you get a great discount for registering early.
- The second thing I could tell you is to decide on your budget for this and stick to it. I didn’t realize how expensive bridal shows could be and I was quite shocked when I added up all the numbers. The good new is once you’ve ordered everything you have it. So all you have to do next time is get your booth and switch out photos every once in a while. Just like planning an actual wedding, decide on your budget and what is most important to you and spend money on that. I knew that since I was in a new area that marketing and photos were most important to me so I got a Platinum Sponsorship for the fair and took advantage of all that great marketing. Then I took a large sum of money and purchased canvases for my booth. They’re my favorite legacy product and make such an impact.
- PLAN PLAN PLAN! I cannot stress this enough. Have a plan! Also have a back up and a back up to your back up. I made a plan…even designed it all out in photoshop and mapped out the floor of my office to see how large my booth was going to be. Then I got to the fair and plan A was out. I didn’t account for how hard it would be to hang photos up on that pole or that my booth would be slightly smaller than I anticipated. Luckily I got there 4 1/2 hours before the show started so I had time to come up with another plan. I originally planned for about 10 photos to be displayed but when I got there that plan wasn’t working so I improvised and think it turned out great!
What do you think?
- Give something away! I did a drawing for a FREE engagement session and that brought in a ton of incredible brides that I got to personally talk to about their big day. I also added an incentive. If brides booked with me within a month of the show they got a FREE session. It was a great incentive and a great way for me to connect with brides and talk about my business.
- Be personable! I know how hard it can be to sell yourself but with bridal shows that’s exactly what you’re doing. Prepare your elevator speech, a 1 minute presentation of what you do and how you can help them. You won’t have long as they have a lot to see so be quick but also be personable and make an impression.
- Set your own expectations and goals. Have a plan of what you want to accomplish and a way to measure it. Do you want to connect with vendors? Do you want to grow your email list? Do you want to book X amount of weddings? Be prepared with your goals and know how you’re going to measure them. Also have a followup plan. Don’t just get the bride’s information and never contact her. Be sure you have a plan for how you’re going to get them to book with you.
There are a ton of great articles online about preparing for a bridal show and I’d definitely recommend reading them. That’s how I got started and I just wanted to add to the wealth of knowledge and give some feedback about my experience.
While very stressful, I am very happy with how it turned out and with the brides that I talked to. Overall, my assistant and I talked to 83 brides in 4 hours. 83! That’s a lot of brides. Oh! And one more tip….bring an assistant with you to help. There are a lot of brides as you can see above and you’ll need someone to help you talk to them all. You can’t clone yourself, although I wish I could at times. Having a helping hand definitely made the day a lot easier and allowed me to have genuine conversations with the brides instead of rushed sales pitches.
I’m still working the numbers to see how beneficial the fair was for my business but just 4 days later, I’m feeling really positive about the experience. Have you done a bridal fair before? If so what do you wish you would have known beforehand? Was it beneficial to you?
A huge thank you to my amazing assistant, Kristin. You’re amazing! A thank you to Mike and his wife, the new owners of Clarksville Brides for putting on a great show! And thank you to the 83 brides and their bridal party for chatting with me about your big day! Check out more photos from the fair below!
