Bridal Fair Hell
There is nothing more overwhelming and eye-opening than a bridal fair. The Sunday after the Friday/Saturday bridal shopping extravaganza, my best friend and I went to our first, and last, Bridal Fair. First of all, you actually have to pay to get access to all of the people whose job it is to get the most of your wedding budget. For our $6 ransom, we got a bag to put all of the wedding brochures and propaganda and we got a “free” Brides magazine. We were then ushered in to two large rooms full of caterers, photographers, djs, wedding destination travel agents, bakers, florists, make up artists, videographers, favor creators, and anything else wedding related you could think of. We could taste anything from cake to beef stroganoff. We must have killed at least a tree worth of paper. I came home with videographer samples and dj samples. It made me realize all of the different vendors that went in to a wedding. I think the ones that most shocked me that day, were the photographers. Pardon me, the “artists”. For the price of some of their packages, you would of thought they were selling you a hand painted Monet of you and your betrothed. While I understand that photography is an art and that you should pay for the skills that the photographers have honed, please! I do not think that 10-20% of my wedding budget should go to photos. I think the big issue I had was with the negatives (or jpg files, I should say). In my mind, they are my photos, I have paid for them to be taken and they should belong to me. This is not the case. Some photographers will not give you the files. If you are allowed to have the files, you have to pay for that privilege, and often, you have to pay a healthy price. One guy said he would release the files to me for free after a year. My pictures should not be held hostage, especially for the price of the photographers. I should not be forced to purchase a wedding album at exorbitant prices. THEY ARE MY PHOTOS! I was going to have to find a photographer that perhaps was not a “wedding” photographer. They were a bit entitled.
On a positive note, I found my DJ there. His name is DJ Earl. I liked him because he ran his own shop. He was who you hired, not some guy who works for him. He has been doing it for 25 years and had a very warm friendly personality. We have a winner in DJ Earl.
Every other aspect of the bridal fair just reinforced my desire to not get ripped off by the bridal machine.
Wedding planning |