We attended "The Great Bridal Expo: Like No Other Show in the World" yesterday in Boston, MA. What a disappointment! From the moment we entered the hotel, everything was poorly executed.
My best friend is also getting married next year, so we were both looking forward to the event, to meeting lots of potential vendors and to getting ideas for our weddings. When we arrived there was no signage in the lobby, so we were left to wander around the extensive hotel until we found the entrance to the show. I use the term 'entrance' loosely because what we really discovered was a mob scene. We had pre-registered with the required survey information, but were still required to fill out the post card with the same data set.
As we continued through the gauntlet, three different representatives of the Expo gave us three different sets of instructions to enter: proceed ahead, buy raffle tickets, wait in line, skip the line... it was chaos. While waiting in a long line that turned out to be unnecessary, many other brides-to-be were also expressing their frustrations at the lack of organization. We chose not to purchase the 45 'raffle tickets' we were offered; they turned out to be pre-printed labels with our information on them to drop into contests at the vendors, which would have been a total waste of both time and money.
Once we were finally able to enter the "expo," we found maybe 40 booths. Our expectations were much higher for the bridal show "like no other bridal show in the world." There was only 1 limo company, 1 DJ, 1 bakery and 2 florists.
It was extremely difficult to move through the "expo," as the room was completely overcrowded. To be honest, I have to believe that the space was completely over-capacity because we were jammed in with so many people that it was difficult to move at times. We were so glad we hadn't purchased the "raffle tickets" because we were only inclined to enter 3 of the contests for "amazing" prizes. The other booths felt like complete solicitations for Financial Planning services, timeshares and home-party sales people that wanted us to host jewlery, Typperware or "passion" parties.