Just recently we took a stand at a Wedding Fair at Sandhole Oak Barn located in the Cheshire countryside near Congleton. We only attend one other fair each year, so you might be interested in why we made this exception. Quite apart from the fact that it is probably the most attractive and well-run wedding venue in the north of England, the event was the best-organised, best-value and consequently, the best-attended we’ve seen for years. And, since we’re not paid to write such glowing reports, let me explain.
I don’t think I’ve met a modern bride who hasn’t endured a Wedding Fair – or as some organisers call them “Wedding Fayres” using quaint, archaic spelling to suggest they’re a long-standing part of the wedding business. They’re not of course. Before the average wedding cost £10,000 or more they just didn’t happen. In those days, the average girl wore a dress made by a talented friend or relative, her groom wore his best suit or perhaps bought a new one from Burtons, the Fifty-Shilling Tailor, and guests were happy with a stand-up buffet at the local pub or hotel.
Don’t get me wrong, wedding fairs can be very useful. Couples, or more usually, the bride, her mother and maybe a bridesmaid, get the opportunity to see something of what the local wedding business is offering – but “something” is the word. To imagine that they’ll see everything or even every category of wedding supplier is simply self-delusion.
First, most wedding fairs are themselves a part of the wedding industry – and everybody pays. The organiser, often the publisher of a local wedding magazine, charges each supplier between £250 and £1500 for their 6ft space – usually a standard hotel table. Then there’s an entrance fee for every visitor, typically £3 to £10 but each visitor will also have to provide their postal or e-mail address which means another deluge of unwanted spam and mail – and that, incidentally, is why most people provide false details!
Second, the cost of participation means that many suppliers providing desirable but relatively inexpensive wedding services (say a musician, a table magician or a balloon bender to entertain the children – all suppliers charging modest fees) simply can’t justify the cost of taking a stand so don’t expect to meet many of them.
So, wedding fairs lend themselves to certain types of supplier – but, like the owners of shopping malls, the organisers distort the scene by limiting the number of any one category of supplier and by controlling what other suppliers can do. For example, all but the largest events include only three or four photographers – and very few organisers allow wedding dress suppliers space for potential clients to try on their dresses. Interestingly the organisers place no limit on the number of photographers wanting to buy advertising space in their magazines – if you’ve got the money they’ve got the paper.
You’ll have gathered by now that the organiser of the Sandhole Oak Bar wedding fair isn’t a magazine publisher; it’s true she selects suppliers which in her view offer products and services of a quality to match the venue and charges them a reasonable fee for the publicity she gives the event, but entrance for visitors is free. Refreshments offered by one of the two caterers who operate at the venue are modestly priced (unlike most hotels which will ask £3+ for a cup of instant coffee). And most significant of all, there’s no catwalk show.
With few exceptions, wedding fair catwalk shows are the most tawdry elements at weddings fairs. First, they’re staged by a local wedding dress shop. These shops, often single unit businesses, can’t afford the cost of professional models which means the dresses are “displayed” by shop staff or the “Saturday” girls who are self-conscious and inept. Most haven’t been trained how to walk, how to show the garments to their best advantage, or sometimes even how to stand up straight. Worse, thanks to the way dress manufacturers control the business, the amateur models don’t wear dresses that fit them but those which are nearest to their size. That means slim girls wearing dresses which touch at just a few places and plump girls who overflow from dresses simply too small for them.
Accompanying the catwalk shows will be DJs with loudspeakers big enough for a large family of Hobbits. Records and CDs are invariably a thing of the past – most music is now played in from a laptop computer – I wonder how many brides realise their evening entertainment relies on a computer not going belly up in the middle of the first dance. The skills of most DJs are limited to rebooting their computer and turning up the volume but along with the amateur models on the catwalk they effectively bring the rest of the typical wedding fair to a standstill for two periods of 30-45 minutes out of a four-hour fair.
And frankly it’s all so unnecessary. When I was a lad, Saturday mornings were devoted to the weekly shop and occasionally my parents would treat us to coffee at the town’s main department store. Throughout the morning the store’s mannequins circulated amongst the tables showing off the latest fashions and chatting to ladies who showed an interest in the clothes. “Soft sell” I suppose they’d call it these days but it had the unique advantage that the clothes were seen “in action” on live models – presumably much more persuasive than hanging them on a rail or display figure.
Why wedding fair organisers don’t stage their dress shows this way is beyond me. The ordeal for the amateur models would be less and they could walk around the fair wearing the various garments for much longer than they’d be displayed on a catwalk; the space freed up by removing the catwalk and chairs would mean wider spaces between the stalls. In fact, I’m told that some years ago, Selfridges showed their wedding garments this way. They don’t seem to be active in the market these days, but perhaps it’s time to remind wedding fair organisers that there’s no law against copying good ideas.
So, is it worth going to wedding fairs at all? Of course it is, just be aware of their limitations.
PHP Weddings Blog 