Getting married is among the top priorities of some people in their lifetime. Settling down and establishing a happy family is what a lot of people want in their lives, and my wife and I are no exception. The transition from a single life to a married life starts with the marriage ceremony itself and, of course, the celebration. This happens only once and most of us want it to be as extravagant as possible. However, not everyone can afford those really, really expensive ceremonies and celebrations. When we were planning our wedding, we didn’t hire a wedding planner. We organized everything ourselves with the help of our family and friends.
The first thing we established was the church for the wedding ceremony. Once that was finished, the most complicated part of the wedding celebration and other particulars came in. Those include following: reception, hotel rooms, photo and video, suits and gowns, car, rings, flowers, cakes, giveaways, invitations and so on. If you have a wedding planner, this could be as easy as sitting back and deciding what you want. The wedding planner should organize everything for you. However, what if you’re doing it all by yourselves? Here’s where Wedding fairs can help you.
You’d want to have all the best for your wedding, right? However, it’s limited as to how much you can and are willing to spend. The good news is that during wedding fairs, the providers will converge at a common area, a convention center or something similar, and they will offer you their services. This is really helpful since all of them are in just one place and you don’t have to visit their offices separately, which are sometimes cities apart. Wedding fairs should save you time, effort and money.
On top of that, during wedding fairs, the providers usually offer discounts. Some would even give discounts as high as 50%. You’ll also be able to see what they offer in person instead of having to just look at pictures online and such. There may be free drinks from providers of mobile bars, you could be invited for free food tasting from caterers, free makeup sessions for the ladies, sample pictures from photographers and studios, sample suits and dresses and so on. They would usually hand out brochures. And believe me you’ll get lots and lots of those. We attended more than 3 of them and ended up going home with bags full of brochures and freebies.
These events usually provide a little something extra just like bands performing on stage, variety shows and contests such as raffle draws and on-stage competitions so that people won’t get bored. These events are usually held on weekends and are open from morning until night time. The exact time they open and close will depend on the location. Here in the Philippines, they are usually held in big convention centers and huge malls.
However, please note that most of them require an entrance fee. Make sure that you check online if they have the event posted on social media. They could give you free access, especially if you’re the couple. They may provide online coupons that you could print out. Present them at the reception desk on the day of the event to get free access. That’s what we actually did. However, if you’re a walk-in guest, they’ll charge you around 50 pesos or so.
As a provider, this is a great chance for you to offer your products and services to potential clients. You could sell your products and secure clients by offering discounts when they give you a down payment. You no longer need to look for specific customers in public places or social media. The people in the wedding fair are already looking for wedding-related providers. All you need to do is give the very best offer you can since there is usually competition just around the corner, literally. But of course, these events have different organizers. For reference, please go directly to the organizers for more details as these events differ when it comes to terms and conditions, especially if you’re a provider.
As you can see, it’s like a one-stop-shop venue for your wedding needs. You can actually complete everything in one day, provided you like the providers and their offers. Just be mindful that the discounts are usually given only if you give a down payment during the event. What you can do is visit on the first day and grab as many offer as you can and then go home. Decide if you’re interested in the offers and if you’d like to book with some providers for your wedding. The next day, if you’ve made a decision, you can come back and make a down payment to save the date with that particular provider. If you haven’t found any that you like, that’s okay as well.
So if you’re planning for your wedding ceremony in the Philippines, be on the lookout for banners or posts from social media to see if there will be an upcoming wedding fair somewhere. These events are usually held once every 3 months or so. The convenience, the discounts and the fact that you could talk directly to the providers, will make it much, much easier to plan for your wedding. If you already have a wedding date, it’s much more convenient since you can book with the providers. Without a wedding planner or organizer, they certainly helped us in deciding which providers to have for our wedding celebration.
