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Archive for the ‘Bridal Shows’ Category
 Monterey Spring Show I love Bridal Shows. And the first Spring Bridal Show that Central Coast Bride produced in Monterey last Sunday was certainly no exception. It was spectacular. The nearly 70 Wedding Exhibitors designed excellent showcases in their booths, transforming the already beautiful ballroom at the Monterey Hyatt Regency into a truly magical space.
 McCullough Photography Booth
Having a Bridal Show on the Sunday that daylight savings time takes effect was an unintended, but it worked out very well. Brides flowed into the ballroom at a steady pace most of the afternoon. This perfect spacing of Bride traffic made for a relaxing show, even though there were nearly 500 attendees, including the 200 Brides. Plus our new cafe’ seating in front of the stage provided a great place for groups to relax between bouts of interviewing Wedding Caterers, Photographers, DJs and more.
 The Winning Couple
The Bridal Show Exhibitors provided lots of great prizes for the Brides, including a Wedding Photography package, musicians for a Ceremony, a couples retreat package and many more. These prizes were all given away once an hour to delighted Brides! Then came the time for the $1000 cash grand prize giveaway at 4pm. Tension built, couples gathered around the stage, drumroll and then the winning Bride’s name was called. And called. And then called again. We didn’t record that missing Bride’s name, but on the second draw there was no doubt that the winning Bride was present. Dionica Pena and her fiance’ Louie Martinez beamed with excitement as flashbulbs popped.
 Coastside Couture Booth
 Freedom Bakery Booth We at Central Coast Bride are still bustling around preparing for our final Spring Bridal Show, which is in San Luis Obispo next Sunday, March 14th. It is held at the landmark Alex Madonna Expo Center and with 120 Exhibitors, any Bride can complete her wedding planning in one afternoon. We hope to see you there!
Tags: bridal show, central coast bridal show, monterey bridal show, monterey wedding, Wedding Planning
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Wedding Vendors are looking for Brides and Brides are looking for Wedding Vendors. One of the ways that Central Coast Bride helps to facilitate the meeting of these Brides and Vendors is through Bridal Shows. We have written a couple of blogs about Bridal Shows before: about it’s usefulness and about how to best use your time at a Bridal Show, both written to help the Bride maximize her Bridal Show experience. Now, we want to show you what goes into putting together a Booth at a Bridal Show. Brides may find this interesting; however, this will be most useful to Bridal Show Exhibitors.
 Fall 2009 SLO Show This week, we will write a series of Blogs about how Exhibitors can make them best use of their investment of time and money in a Bridal Show. This current post is to help newer Exhibitors envision how a Bridal Show booth is built. Here is a series of time-lapse photos of Exhibitors erecting their booths.
10×10 Corner Booth
This is one of four 10×10 booths that stand alone in a small square island. They open out on two sides for Bride access and have two 8-ft tall back walls of black drape. This photographer makes great use of his wall space, color, movement (TV), lighting, and has an open floor plan for his booth with one cocktail table at the outside corner with his marketing materials for Brides to pick up. Run time 3:25 10×10 Corner Booth Set Up
8×10 In-Line Booth
This is an 8×10 booth in line with a number of other 8×10 booths. One thing you see in this video is that they arrived early so the set up of their booth did not interfere with their neighbors and vice versa. This booth is open for Bride access across the 10 foot front of the booth and it has one 8-ft tall black wall of black drape. This Exhibitor created a “Living Room” booth using a wood floor, gray backdrop panels with lighted photo display, chairs, sofa table and end tables. With all this furniture in the booth, there is still plenty of room for Brides to enter plus they have easy access to marketing materials from the sofa table. Open and welcoming booth with good display of their product. Run time 0:26 8×10 In-Line Booth Set Up Here is a second video of this booth setup, with more detailed views if you would like to see the mechanics of their set up. Detailed View
8×10 In-Line Set Up
These folks also set their booth up as a Living Room, though it is has a very different look than the earlier one. Run time 1:53 8×10 In-Line Booth #2
8×10 In-Line Set Up
An edgy booth using corrigated metal back and sides. Includes both set up and break down. Run time 1:09 8×10 In-Line Booth #3
These are just a few examples of booth set ups. And obviously, these Exhibitors have participated in many Bridal Shows as they have a set booth look that they can use at each show. If you are about to participate in your first Bridal Show as an Exhibitor, you will likely not have such a complicated booth.
We highly recommend that you design your booth and set it up at your home, garage or office prior to the show date. Lay out your booth size and place everything as you want it to be at the show. This will show you what parts of your design will work well and where the weaknesses or problems are that you will want to tweak prior to show date. This will also give you an idea of how long it will take you to erect your booth on the day of the show so you can plan your arrival time accordingly.
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 When you first get engaged, it can be difficult to know where to begin to get your wedding planning on track. Basically you are now the Chief Coordinator for the largest most upscale party you will ever host. Below are your initial 6 Quick Steps to do to quickly get your wedding planning on track.
1) Get educated
2) Get organized
3) Get your Wedding Toolbox stocked
4) Set your wedding date, style and size
5) Set your wedding budget
6) Generate your wedding timeline
1) Get Educated. You need to get up to speed quickly. Should you buy a 2-inch thick planning guide at the bookstore? Not if you already have a busy life. Those big books are full of lots of fluff that will take days to read and that you simply don’t need. To get educated quickly, grab a Central Coast Bride Magazine for your area (about ¼ inch thick!) and read through the wedding planning articles without the fluffy filler. You can also read these same articles plus view planning tools on our website at www.CentralCoastBride.com. You can still browse through fun wedding style magazines, but to quickly learn what a wedding involves and how to plan one, read our no nonsense guides first.
2) Get Organized. The best way to sanely plan your wedding is to get and stay organized. Buy a 3-ring binder that is 2 to 3 inches thick. Buy clear plastic sleeves into which you can slip brochures, flyers and business cards. Buy index page dividers with the little tabs and create sections for the ceremony site, reception site, photographer and so on. At the front of each section, keep a copy of your contract related to that category. At the front of the binder, keep a summary sheet of names and numbers of all of your contracted wedding vendors plus a calendar where you will enter your milestone dates. That’s it! Now you are organized.
3) Get Your Wedding Toolbox Stocked. We have three Major Tools in helping to plan your wedding: Magazines, Bridal Shows, Website.
- Website. Go to www.CentralCoastBride.com and click on Planning Tools. There you will find a variety of helpful tools like Wedding Worksheets, Checklists and Timelines. You can also search for Local Wedding Vendors in any or all of the five counties in the Central Coast. Or you can request One Click Referrals to find available wedding services. Future posts will give more detailed Website Tool information, but feel free to browse the tools on your own.
- Magazines. Pick up a copy of our wedding planning Magazine and keep it in your Wedding Binder or in your purse. It contains tons of information about wedding planning, including a listing of Wedding Venues by Area & City, a table of Wedding Venue details (like capacity, features, phone numbers) and an index with contact information for local wedding professionals. Each of our Magazines may be viewed online at the What’s Hot Tab, which is under the Planning Tools Tab.
- Bridal Shows. Bridal Shows are fun and extremely useful – more on them in a blog next week. In the meantime, you can read about how to best use a bridal show on our website at the Articles Tab (under the Planning Tools Tab).
4) Set Your Wedding Date, Style and Size. Although Friday evening and Sunday afternoons are options for your wedding day, most weddings are held on Saturdays. And though weddings are held year round, the peak wedding season is the summer months. However, the weather is so fabulous in the Central Coast that our peak wedding season extends from May through October. There are 5 things to think about in picking your date.
- Determine the year for your wedding
- Consider if there a date that has some special significance to you that you want to use? Like your first date, your engagement anniversary, your parent’s wedding anniversary, etc.
- If not, determine the time of year for your wedding
- Within that timeframe, find three dates that works well with you and your groom’s schedules
- See which of those 3 dates work best with the schedules of key friends and family
Once you are set on the date, get your wedding and reception locations reserved as early as possible. These sites can book up to a year in advance. More on booking your Wedding Venue a blog next week.
Wedding Style. Your personal style may be formal or casual, traditional or contemporary, intimate or huge, or somewhere in between these ends of the spectrum. You may want your wedding style to match your personal style, or you may want to go against your personal style. Considering these questions will help you to quickly figure out your wedding style, which will help you to narrow down your potential wedding venues.
Wedding Size. The size of your guest list will depend on the size and closeness of your family, your groom’s family, your friends and your budget. Unless you can find a workable way around it, big families equal large weddings. And the larger your wedding, the more it will cost since many wedding services are based on the number of guests (venue, food, cake, flowers, invitations and rentals). Spend an evening with your groom specifically to come up with an estimate of your wedding size. You will fine-tune this number later, but get an estimate for now. Each of you make a list of family and friends that should be invited to the wedding. List them all – it is much easier to remove names from the list than to add them later. What is the total number of your combined lists? Is it in the ballpark of the size of wedding you would like or can afford? If so, great. If not, start lining-out names that can be cut until you get to a size that seems right for you. Then share your draft list to your parents to see if there is some family that must be added.
5) Set Your Wedding Budget. Determine the total amount you want or are able to spend on your wedding. Then determine the amount of your total budget to allot to each of the elements of the wedding (i.e., Catering, DJ, Photography, etc). There are no absolute rules for this division; however, the traditional percentages are presented in our website’s worksheets.
6) Generate Your Wedding Timeline In the calendar in the front of your 3-ring binder, post your wedding milestone dates starting with your wedding date, then work backwards from that date to today. See the example timeline under the Planning Tools on our website. This timeline will help you to identify milestones that are appropriate for you. As each wedding decision is made, be sure to update your calendar.
Posted in Bridal Shows, Ideas, Planning Tools, Wedding Guests, Wedding Planning | 2 Comments »
 Central Coast Bride Welcome to Central Coast Bride’s new Wedding Planning Blog. We will be posting periodic entries about a variety of topics having to do with your wedding planning. Some of you are on a short timeline, so we will quickly post the key information you will need to easily and sanely get all of your wedding planning completed.
We are all about good Time Management and we understand the value of your time. So we will keep these planning entries short and to the point, so that you don’t have to read through unnecessary filler. You may want to sign up to automatically receive our blog entries. Once you are married, you can simply unsubscribe.
Our Upcoming Blogs for Planning Your Wedding are:
- How To Get Started
- The Power of Bridal Shows
- How To Book Your Wedding Venue
Until they are posted, you can find plenty of California Central Coast wedding planning information on our website at www.CentralCoastBride.com, including Wedding Worksheets, Wedding Checklists, Referrals to Local Wedding Vendors, How-To Articles, and more.
One Click Request. To quickly identify which Wedding Professionals are available on your wedding date, try our One Click Request service (link below). Enter basic information about your wedding and what services you still need. Then available Wedding Caterers, DJs, Venues, etc. will email over information about their services. It’s a huge time-saver. http://www.centralcoastbride.com/one_click.php.
Feel free to comment on our blog entries and to suggest additional topics. And remember, Wedding Planning doesn’t have to be difficult…. not when you have the right tools!
Tags: central coast bridal show, central coast wedding locations, central coast wedding planning, Central Coast Weddings, how to plan a wedding, wedding planning tools
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