Are wedding shows worth it?

I found my amazing venue through a show, and my amazing planner. I dragged my feet getting there but so glad I went.

I found them worth the ideas you can see but for choosing venues or anything not worth it you wont find many small dealers there..

I've been to a couple in my area, the last one we were in a place of actively booking vendors vs. doing research and booked our dj and saved $300 and got an add on package for free.

I'm going to one here in Atlanta on Jan 28th. We still need a photographer and it's a good place to see their work in person. A computer can disrupt photos sometimes. Other that it allows you to get ideas on decor and such. But I agree use a different email. If you find your vendor you can always give them the normal email later.

Definitely go. I won a $1400 credit at a jewelry shop at my first bridal show. At another one, I won a free engagement shoot, which I gave to another bride because we already did our engagement photos.

ETA: I see people saying the prizes won came with a catch. While it's true for some things, I can tell you that I walked out of there with the jewelry store credit and the engagement photos. They were part of raffles and my ticket was drawn in both cases. Guess it depends on the show.

I got the flu from one show I went too, take germ x.

We have gone to a couple bridal shows, and they were fun, but I think we get the idea now. Here is my advice about them:

- Go with a goal in mind: We are looking for XYZ, and make sure you have your date and venue, since every vendor will ask. Otherwise they can be SUPER overwhelming and you just leave with a bunch of promotional crap you don't need (I literally just threw away our entire bag of stuff from our first bridal show- we didn't end up using any of those vendors)

- Make a new email for the wedding. You WILL get emails from everyone- even vendors you didn't give your information to.

- The ones with champagne and fashion shows are the most fun

- Read all the fine print for anything you "win." I "won" lots of things, but they were really sales pitches, that ultimately weren't worth it. We also won a free night at the hotel one of the shows were at, and none of the staff knew how to honor it, and it was a nightmare from beginning to end (but did help us rule that out as a venue)

- Most shows are annual, so we literally could have waited a year, and gone to all of them again for discounts that would matter closer to our wedding.

- Things we did end up getting/using: We made an appointment to set up our registry (which we could have done anywhere), I made a follow up appt for my dress, we bought FH's wedding band, we drank a lot and had fun....

- Be picky about what you take, who you talk to and what you sign up for but they're definitely fun to do once or twice!

^^ Very sensible advice. ^^^

I found our photographer at a bridal expo and was thrilled with the expo discount. But everything else at the show was ehhh. We had actually been recommended our photographer before we got there and then when we saw their work got super excited and booked the next day. P.S. I didn't win anything at the one I went to :-/

Yes!! I found my venue, florist and caterer at a bridal show . They also gave out $500 in bridal bucks (essentially a 500$ gift card) which we were able to apply to the venue.

Definitely worth it! A lot of places do giveaways and discounts if you saw them at a bridal show/open house