{Guest Blogger} Bridal Fashion Debut Experience

 

Happy Wednesday Everyone!

            My name is Emily! About two months ago, the lovely J. Starr hired me as an intern for this summer. She gave me a fair warning right off the bat that the internship would be at sometimes crazy one, filled with twin girls, wiener dogs and occasional chaos. But she promised it would be a fun one, and so far, she has kept her promise.

            Jennifer asked me to be a guest blogger on her blog today and to tell you all a little bit about my experience at the Bridal Fashion Debut, the Arizona Bridal Show that took place at the beginning of June!
 

 

         The show started with set-up day, which was that Saturday.  I had never been to a bridal exposition so I had no idea what to expect. Upon first arriving at the Phoenix Convention Center, all I saw was booths. Rows upon rows of booths. There had to have been hundreds of them with signs advertising florists, photographers, venues, caterers, DJ’s, and a strange amount of Brazilian Waxing and hair removal studios (I was especially not expecting that!)

            Jennifer was there to design two of these booths; one for Phoenix Bride & Groom Magazine and one for Seville Golf and Country Club. We first made our way to the Phoenix B&G booth, along with Dawn, who works with the magazine (and is a TON of fun to work with!).

            I had no idea what the plans for the booth were. All I saw were about a billion pink, white, and gold balloons (small exaggeration), and about a thousand of the newest editions of the Phoenix Bride & Groom magazine (not an exaggeration). I knew that the theme was a party, since it was the 15^th anniversary of the magazine (Congrats Phoenix Bride & Groom!) Jennifer immediately had me get started on creating a super cute paper tassel, while her and Dawn began blowing up balloons.

After a while, we had a beautiful, glamorous white tent set up, and amazing, clear, hollow tables, which we filled with balloons. We stacked tons of copies of the Phoenix Bride & Groom magazines on them for brides to take home. It came together absolutely beautifully and getting to see the transformation was really exciting.

These tables are such a cool concept! Table by Kool Party Rentals

While we had been working on that, Jennifer had been buzzing back and forth between that booth and the Seville booth. I headed over to check that one out and found a similar white tent going up. Just like at the PB&G booth, I had no idea what the plans for this one were. But, I started noticing some really pretty arches, Astroturf, amazing hedges, beautiful linens and sets of chairs being brought in. I realized that she was creating an actual ceremony similar to one that would be available for couples at Seville.

            This booth came together quite easily. The only little hiccup was that the tent was not quite the same size as the booth, but Jennifer thought quickly on her feet and came up with a slightly altered design plan that was just as amazing as the original. It was incredible! It was unlike anything else at the convention. I wanted to get married there!

The ceremony set-up at the Seville Booth!

Isn't it beautiful? (Lovely Linens by Southwick Linens, Florals from Blume Events, Rentals from Classic Party Rentals)

   

We were all very confident that the two booths would be a success at the show.  Set up was over at 6 p.m. that night, and it was just barely 5 when we were informed that our beautiful, glamorous tent at the PB&G booth was going to have to come down (due to some visibility concerns) . Jennifer tried to convince the manager of the show to let us keep it (or modify it a bit), but unfortunately, the tenting had to come down.  We then arranged for the tent to be taken down later that evening. However, they were going to leave the white draping in the back up so that it wasn’t just black. We unfortunately couldn’t be there when the tent came down, so we left and hoped that it would still look as beautiful in the morning as it did when we left that evening….

Fast forward about 14 hours…

The day of the Bridal Show, we arrived at the convention center extra early in the morning so that we could make sure the Phoenix Bride & Groom booth was still as amazing without the tent as it was with the tent. We rushed to our booth, only to find out… the draping at the back of the booth was accidentally taken when they took down the rest of the tent. We were left with the plain black draping.

            We were all a bit stunned at first, but Jennifer quickly came to a decision on how to spruce it up; we were going to create a "balloon wall" on the black draping. It was a party after all! Kendall (Jennifer’s other intern) and I quickly got to work on that while Jennifer checked with the Seville booth to make sure everything was perfect. Kendall and I rocked out that balloon wall in record time, and luckily, it still looked absolutely amazing!   

            By then, it was about 8:45am, and the V.I.P. brides would be arriving at the show in about fifteen minutes. We started taking some marketing photos of the two booths, as well as all of the lovely people who work for each of the companies. (Jennifer let me use her husband’s super fancy camera to take some pictures, and I am not going to lie, it was pretty fun!)

Jennifer and the lovely ladies from Seville!

And there she is again, with the three PB&G covers that she coordinated and designed! Aren't they beautiful!?

And there's Kendall and I in the booth! (That's me on the right!) I think it turned out really fantastic!

By the time the clock struck 9am, we were ready to rock the show! Jennifer, Kendall, and I set out on an adventure of our own. We made our way through the show and Kendall and I watched as Jennifer did her thing; networking and talking up almost every vendor in the place! I was amazed at how on she was during the whole show. We handed out some amazing J. Starr cookies that Kendall had made, (which were amazing, by the way).



P.S. Isn't that sequin tablecloth amazing? You could say I'm obsessed!

Here's the lovely Dawn Peterson and Kristen Butler of Phoenix Bride and Groom Magazine

 

 

Kendall and I also got to walk around the show on our own to see what we thought and meet some of the vendors. (We were mostly interested in sampling as many cakes as possible. Shh, don’t tell Jennifer!)

            Soon, we decided to call it a day for the J. Starr team, and let everyone run the booths on their own. We headed home and I was left with a cool swag bag, aching feet and a new impression of the words bridal show. In the end, I realized that that weekend was a very good lesson on an important part of this industry; be ready for things to go wrong. After realizing that, I think it’s safe to say I am spending the summer learning this lesson from the best of the best!


Thank You for Reading,

Guest Blogger: Emily
J.Starr Summer Intern