Going to a wedding fair tomorrow. What should I expect?

Hi Sammyjay,

The MK fayre is good if you have not decided on much yet but there a lot of florists, venues, photographers and dress stands so you may not find it that useful if you have booked these already. There is a few other bits though so worth a look.

On the plus side, I have been a couple of times as they do it twice a year and never been given a hard sell by anyone.

If you have not yet booked your suits I would highly recommend Fogartys who are usually at the show, they are slightly more expensive than some local suppliers but they are worth it because once you book your date and suit type they book out the whole stock for you so if there is an issue with sizing when you pick the suits up they have all the other sizes to change it for. My friend got married the other week and H2B was an usher, his suit was too small and then when she tried to change it his size was already booked for someone else so he had to have a slightly different size, not a huge deal but could have been if that was booked out too !! They are based in Leighton Buzzard.

Enjoy the show !!

N x

Expect to go home with lots of carrier bags filled with magazines and leaflets..........

cake testings good, go there

We went to our first one last weekend and, like you, didn't know what to expect. We came away pleasantly surprised.

We were right at the beginning of our planning so had more or less a clean slate to work with - and spoke to everyone of interest. It was some distance from our chosen venue so we could easily discount a lot of people, but we found one photographer from Portsmouth who really stood out and both of us felt that he was the one we wanted to take care of probably the most important part of the day. He had a show offer on, and although we weren't able to get back to talk to him, we called him the following day and he remembered us so he honoured his show offer for us.

You'll find lots of things you hadn't actually thought about; don't be tempted to book up lots of things on the day on impulse particularly if you're still finalising some aspects of your celebrations. Don't know if your OH is going but it's not something you can easily do alone so would recommend you both go - plus it's good if possible to have chief bridesmaid or your mother along for an independent view too.

There were a few trying their hard sell, and one that completely blanked us to talk to the people that came up behind us (presumably we didn't seem to be in his particular clientelle) but that's ok as you'll find lots of others offering a similar service.

What we did was to go round and grab leaflets from everyone, then go for a coffee and chat things over, then go back and chat further to your shortlists in more depth. It's what they will expect you to do so it's not a problem. If you feel pressured simply say thankyou for your time and walk away. There are plenty of alternatives out there, whatever they might think, and if they're desperate for business that might be why; if they say you need to book now because they may get booked otherwise then it's no problem either as it won't matter that they don't get your booking as someone else will grab it!

Rings are a big thing - do you want custom made jewelery costing £500 each, or will you be happy with stock from a jewelers? I settled on a titanium ring which cost me £25!!!

Just make sure you've worked out your budgets beforehand, and tell people that you want to spend 10% less than the figure you've worked out, and you may well find you are offered all sorts of interesting deals. If you get £50 off you've got a bargain, and they think they've done well too even though you're still spending less than you wanted to!