On the weekend I attended the 39th Annual Wedding Fair at the Westin Bayshore in Vancouver. After reading many how-to’s prior to attending my first wedding fair, I found there was still a lot to learn.

#5 Don’t print your own labels.

I read everywhere that I should arrive prepared with my own peel off labels for all of the draws held. I went through the trouble of buying the labels, formatting the labels, and printing the labels to find out that the Wedding Fair prints labels for you for $5.

While I am all about saving money. The time and money I spent printing the labels myself was not worth it.

#4 Don’t sign up for every draw

The big attraction to these wedding fairs is all of the free stuff you can get! A method many used to get free stuff is to apply for every draw. I followed this method and found that I won nothing and gained many spammy emails from entertainers I don’t want at my wedding.

#3 Bring your BFOTB

According to all of the bridal timelines I’ve read, you’re not supposed to name your maid of honour until a year away from the wedding. My wedding is a year a seven months away, so I technically don’t have a maid of honour yet. that being said I have my BFOTB. Incase you don’t know what a BFOTB is, I’ll let Sookie from Gilmore Girls explain:

Now that you’re all caught up! Your BFOTB is a life saver.

My BFOTB, Amanda, was amazing! she signed me up for draws while I was talking to people, she scouted potential exhibitors I would like to talk to, and snuck extra samples for me. Best of all, she helped carry all of the information I got! which leads me to…

#2 There is A LOT of information

I never thought I would leave the wedding Fair with over 20 pounds of flyers, magazines, and samples. Yet there I was, with three giant tote bags full of more information than I needed. I wish I had spent the time to critically look at every booth and decide if I wanted to take everything with me, but looking back I think I was too excited to stop and think.

#1 BRIDAL MAGAZINES ARE FREE

If you are like me, and you like bridal magazines for ideas. You should know, most of them are at the wedding fair for free. I saved $40 on wedding magazines!

As you can tell by the pictures below, I had a ton of fun at my first wedding fair.

Have you attended a wedding fair before? If so, where was it and what did you learn? Answer in the comments below!