My Dad (yes, my father) got it into his head that I just had to attend one of the local Bridal Shows. Something about how I could win free stuff, this without him taking into account I am anti-lucky. If anything lucky ever came into contact with me the world would explode.But we had to humor him so me, my Mom, and my flower girl (who's 21) trekked off to one being held in town. (I told my fiancee there was no way he had to go, because I am not that mean regardless of what some e-mails may warn you about) It was easily the biggest waste of time and money I have ever walked through.
For $9 for all of us to get in, we had to wander amongst a handful of booths not a single one of which I was interested in. There was one for dresses (David's Bridal, natch) though I already had my dress, one for tuxes, about three for photographers, one for a DJ, one for a limo service, one for a huge pot and pan scam, and 10 that were there to make your life a living hell.
Of course every "booth" has a card you can fill out where you can register to win things. Yeah, right. I would say right now if you do have to go to one, invent a phone number and if you haven't already create an e-mail addy just for wedding stuff make one now. It makes life so much easier when dealing with SPAM. Even though I didn't go near a single insurance booth I have been plagued by them since I went and they will not relent (Here's another bride who had the same problems).
If you do get dragged to one and don't want to listen to their spiel I have some great tips. First off if they make you wear a bride sticker (my friend pretended she was a bride too to sign up for stuff, which entertained me the entire day) hide it under your jacket. It's still on your shirt, but people are a lot less likely to bother the crap out of you.
However, if they do start babbling to you, the trick is to not look at them. I have this amazing ability where if I don't want people to talk to me, I just look off and pretend like I'm not really there and neither are they. It keeps most solicitors far away and they move on to whoever is behind me. Sadly, anymore they seem to move onto my guy if I'm with him so we got to work on a signal (He's terrible at saying no.)
Hopefully with these tips you will be better prepared for the scam of a bridal show, where you learn nothing, win nothing, and just help pay all the vendors for some free advertising.
We went to two bridal shows. The first one was overwhelming because I hadn't booked anything and I *just* got engaged. But I found my wedding planner and my hall. The second time I went, I found my cake.
ReplyDeleteI signed up for a couple things the first time around and got all cars saying I won this, or I had to come to this. I didn't fall for any of them.
And luckily my cell phone number changed. And I only received one thing in the mail.
The second time around, I would put the correct address, but leave a number out in the postal code, or switch around my phone number, so instead of 555-5524 it was 555-5542 ha! See if you can track me down... and they never did. Ha.
I agree, wedding shows are the biggest waste of time. You get people hounding you, trying to talk you into buying this, or putting a deposit on that.
The only thing I got that I loved was the coupons to save $30.00 of tuxes and the groom gets one free. Sweet!