I know, I know. In my last post I was leaning towards not attending the NEPA Bridal Expo this past Sunday. And then I went anyway. Some of my bridesmaids strong-armed gently talked me into attending. Aaaand…… I didn’t really have the urge to set the building on fire. Woo hoo!

As you might expect, bridal expos in the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton area are not huge affairs. Since I didn’t need to visit the venue, photographer or florist booths, we managed to speak with everyone in about an hour. If you were just getting started, I imagine you could spend about 2 hours browsing. Bridesmaid L and I wandered around for an hour (and THANK YOU for going with me) and then hit Dunkin Donuts for a recap afterwards. I purposely went sans-mothers for sanity reasons, though I may take them to the next expo just to give them the experience.

On the plus side, none of the vendors were too pushy. I got the information I needed and signed up for more updates from those I was truly interested in. One ‘registry’ type vendor has been pushy after the fact though.. they called me twice on Monday! I haven’t even looked at their website yet! It might be worth it to put down fake phone numbers for all the vendors if you attend an expo.

On the negative side, the crowd got a little overwhelming at one point. The hot lights and the stereotypical “bridezillas” crowding around the photo booth in the back made me break out in a sweat, but that’s when we walked away and had a piece of cake.

On the ridiculous side, I saw a local DJ who is on air a lot, but also has a wedding business. He was walking in at the same time as me and the best way I can describe him is what I texted to BM E – he looked like a guy who is pushing 50, wearing a jacket straight out of Star Wars, and t-shirt that Ed Hardy personally threw up on. The cloud of his cologne wafted back and almost knocked me into the street! Yuck!

Once I check out some vendor sites I will gladly post my thoughts here. I just wanted to let everyone know how it went. Bridal expos are ok, I guess. If you haven’t gotten far in the planning, I think you will benefit a lot from the ideas you find there, so give it a shot! Did anyone else attend this weekend?