Playing It Fast and Loose with the Word “Wonderful”

I attended the Wonderful Wedding Show at the Convention Centre this past weekend, and boy was it an experience.  Since I didn’t take many pictures at the show, this week’s blog post will be filled with Google image recreations of my weekend.  Read on!

 

So I bought the tickets for Saturday and Sunday ahead of time, and on the wedding show website they give you the opportunity to pre-register as a VIB.  This stands for “Very Important Bride”.  Eye roll.  Among the many non-existent perks of being a VIB is early access to the show at 10 am, after which they let in all the sad, unimportant brides at 11 am.  I’m thinking, okay.  That can’t be too bad.  At least they will only let in a select number of people from 10 to 11 and we might be able to zip through the show ahead of everyone and make it out relatively unscathed!  So on Saturday, Eric and I went for about 9:50 am and were greeted with a line that looked something like this:

 

Mother of God.

 

We heard while standing in the Gargantuan Line-Up of Doom that there were over 1,400 “VIBs” registered.  So what’s the point then?  Just say the show starts at 10 and save me from having to give my name and address to yet another website that is only going to spam me to death.  But oh yes, VIBs also get a “complimentary EXCLUSIVE gift bag stuffed full of samples and special offers”!  Which equated to exactly 23 flyers, a small packet of hand cream and an emery board.  Legit.

 

As Eric and I entered the show, our main focus was trying to get information on photographers, as that is the next big step in our plans, but we were quickly engulfed by flyers, draws, and pushy salespeople trying to get us to switch our cable service provider (WHY is MTS Connect at the wedding show.  Why.)  As Eric succinctly put it, he felt like “Frodo walking into Mordor”.  And he wasn’t far off.  Once we got into the belly of the beast, it looked a little something like this:

 

 

I think there are some booths in there somewhere.

 

Despite Eric’s claims of handing in his manhood card, we actually had a good time at the wedding show.  We may have lingered a little too long at the wine tasting booth (twice), but we talked to a few photographers, looked at some invitations, and talked about some little details for the wedding.  Overall, mission accomplished.  One observation that wasn’t lost on either of us though, was how many once-overs Eric got.  Seriously, he was checked out more than a library book.  Now, Eric is a handsome man, we all know this.  But as he made his way through the gauntlets of women at the wedding show, he quickly turned from this:

 

 

Effortless, casual attractiveness

 

To this:

 

 

Note:  Do not Google image “big piece of meat”.  Especially when you are at work. 

 

And if you think that lustfully staring at a man who is clearly the fiancé of the woman he is standing next to wearing the giant pink “BRIDE” lanyard is below the morals of the Lonely Bridesmaid Watching Her Friend Plan the Wedding of her Dreams While Contemplating How Many Viable Eggs She Has Left, well apparently you would be wrong.  But Eric just took it in stride, and we laughed about it later.  And bonus, I get to marry the hot guy who was sweet enough to go to the wedding show with his fiancé!  :)

 

As we moved through the show it seemed that more and more VIBs were catching up to us.  It was so crowded at one junction of the trade show floor (somewhere around the corner of “Happy Sweet Cuteness Photography” and “Perfect Wedded Bliss Sugar Cookies of Love”) that at one point, I had to brush past a few people to sneak through to a few spare inches of open space so I could loosen my collar and wipe my brow.  As I did that, I accidentally tapped the gigantic purse slung over the shoulder of one particularly fat, squat MOB that reminded me a lot of Professor Umbridge in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix:

 

 

“I WILL. HAVE. OR-DAH!”

 

So as I tried to politely pass through the throng and in doing so tickled this sleeping dragon, Umbridge whips around, gives me a withering look and spits a vigorous “JEEEEESUS!” in my direction, as if I have just tackled her Terry Tate style.  To which Jesus promptly responded:

 

 

Holy facepalm.

 

So after having entered about 40 draws and making our way through most of the show, Eric and I called it a day.  We were there for about three hours, so Eric definitely earned some big time brownie points!

 

But the fun continues!

 

On Sunday, I went to the show with MOB and my two-so-far bridesmaids, Tara and Melissa.  At this point, I had abandoned all pretenses of being the sweet happy blushing bride that was more than willing to listen to never ending schpeals about things I will never buy.  The snarky bride in me took over and basically we zoomed through the show, I pointed out all the things that I liked, we watched the fashion show (which was pretty good) and entered all the draws again.  We also spent a little more time looking at booths that Eric and I skipped over, plus MOB wanted to scope out the cake booths and Tara kept squealing at twine and patterned paper in the invitation booths.  ;)

 

Other than no lineup, it was still the same show as Saturday.  Every time you turn a corner, you are always faced with some form of this:

 

 

Don’t.  BUMP.  Me.

 

Followed immediately by some form of this:

 

 

Shabby chic.  Minus the chic.

 

 

I DON’T.

 

 

I was getting married in barns with mismatched china before it was cool.

 

Vintage hipsterism is EVERYWHERE.  It’s huge right now.  So every second booth was pink, grey and mint green, and had mason jars, paper hearts, stripes, old wood, more mason jars, and flowered head wreaths.  I don’t really understand this trend at all, but at least that leaves more glitter and sparkles for me!

 

So while I’m pretty far from entering the club of old married ladies and passing on my sage advice to future brides, having endured two days at the wedding show I will share with you the number one thing I learned:

 

Name and address labels are a must.  Period.  I had heard this from past brides and read it on the show website, but you don’t appreciate the enormity of its importance until you are at the wedding show and you can just rip, stick and keep walking instead of stopping for a minute and a half to write down your information over and over.  Eric and I entered 40 draws the first day, so this saved us a whole hour.  But more importantly, you do not want to be bent over a table at a booth writing, and end up on the news like this girl:

 

 

Awkward.

 

Happy Wedding Wednesday!!!

 

 

~M