The highs and the lows of Bridal Expos.... (My rant of the day)

If bridal expos sound exhausting, it's because they are. In theory, it's a great concept: put all the different vendors in one large room so brides and grooms can make a one-stop shop. No cold-calling—saving your precious cell phone minutes, and no driving around—saving our precious ozone. 


But after a very long day at a bridal expo in Oakbrook earlier this year, my fiancé and I felt like we wasted our entire Sunday. As recommended we registered for tickets early to avoid a sell-out, and we arrived early to avoid the crowd. I honestly feel like they give away way too many free tickets, because when we arrived the place was packed, and the event space was poorly laid out. Rather than a large open space like at most conventions, the event was organized much like a maze. So rather than free roaming, we were forced to follow a line throughout the event. It was so packed that you couldn't even spend time to talk to vendors, just pick up brochures.


Oh and they have you leave self-addressed labels at each booth to increase your chances of winning a prize, but i have not won anything—unless you consider countless numbers of redundant emails and postcards about photography and hot pink bachelorette parties to be a prize worth winning. 


To be honest, everything they advertise at bridal expos fit into the neat "wedding box." So if you want a wedding that is truly unique, you should definitely visit a bridal expo—that way you can realize what you don't want.

And now we can officially get married!

For the vast majority of the vendors we have already selected, Brandon and I always have trusted word-of-mouth referrals. So when it came to choosing a minister, we thought it would be easy—meet with some people our friends and family referred and call it a day! Yah...not so much.

Like most couples, we wanted someone who would marry us under the presence of God minus the mass. But we also wanted it to be personable and funny. However, when we met with several wedding officiants nothing felt personable or special. We felt like we were just another couple they were marrying in the rush of wedding season.

Discouraged but still hopeful, Brandon and I drove out to LaGrange Bible Church for another referral (his co-worker had stood up in a wedding and said even after a year she still remembers the things the minister had said.) Without even realizing it, we had a two-hour conversation with Reverend Bacon (the church's senior pastor), but within the first ten minutes we knew we had found our minister.

He didn't pressure us into signing a contract, and he doesn't officiate weddings for extra cash. Rev. Bacon is even willing to perform at our ceremony off-site in the city though we are not members of his church. In our conversation with him, he sincerely conveyed the love and passion that he has for his career as well as his strong beliefs in love and marriage. After meeting with him we cannot imagine anyone else marrying us, and are truly excited to have him be a part of our big day!

A little bit of retro style....

After a few months of prodding, Brandon finally gave in—we are thrilled to add 312Photobooth to our list of vendors! Ever since I found out it was possible to rent photobooths, I knew that I wanted one the minute we got engaged. 

What's great about this company is that they designed their digital-retro booth themselves. So while it's not the old-school chemical booth (which they also have available for rent), it looks just like one with all the benefits of digital. 

Every strip taken is printed twice so guests can add a copy to a provided scrapbook. Then we get a DVD of all the pictures taken so we can click through and laugh at everyone's drunken pictures—even the ones people were too ashamed to add to our scrapbook! They even provide an FTP site where people can download their strips at no additional charge.

And since there are no walls, my goal on the night of our wedding is to get the whole wedding party in one photo—all 19 of us!