How a Bridal Expo Taught Me Something About Myself

Over the weekend, I had the displeasure of visiting my very first (and absolutely the last) bridal expo. It seemed silly to spend money to go to a place where vendors are asking you to spend more money, like paying to watch commercials. Also, I’m paying to GIVE them my personal information, which seems like I’m getting stiffed here, since they’re the ones who find my information valuable for sending junk and spam.

So, I was essentially paying money to give them information THEY valued so that THEY could entice me to spend MORE money. Wait, why was I doing this again? Oh, right. In case I missed something from my own wedding planning.

I figured it was a good opportunity to find inspiration and maybe see if I’d missed anything in the planning. I was also somewhat enticed by the giveaways. I even armed myself with printed labels, because I heard it could get really tiring having to fill in your information for every single giveaway.

I was warned that it would be crowded and probably unpleasant. I wouldn’t say it was unpleasant. It was downright awful. It was like walking in circles at the zoo on a Sunday in May, except there wasn’t anything really worth looking at. I was also getting motion sickness from moving through waves of people on miles of carpet that had some weird optical illusion pattern that seemed to make the floor sway and undulate before me. It was hard to enjoy the free cake tastings because I was so queasy from the motion sickness. Vendors were everywhere, like crows to carcass, putting on fake smiles and trying to convince you that now was the time to make a decision about spending money with them.

If you’re after a minimalist style for your wedding and you’re not interested in all the frills of an overpriced vendor, there’s no need to sign up for a bridal show.

It turns out, only the most expensive and frivolous vendors come to these giant bridal expos. None of the vendors that my fiancé and I had ever considered were there, and we had considered them for their sincerity, level of professionalism and realistic rates, which were still rather high but justifiable. I have yet to determine if their bridal show discounts make this experience worthwhile.

However, I did come away with a fresh perspective. It began with a rude vendor.

I approached “Thuyen” at the Kay Jewelers booth to inquire about wedding bands. After she showed me two bands, I told her I wanted something with fewer stones, that it was too much sparkle for me. She replied that my ring was dirty and that all her diamonds were higher quality than mine; therefore, they would always sparkle more. My fiancé was standing right behind me and I hope he didn’t hear her.

When I had first considered the possibility of marriage, I started researching diamonds and found myself hung up on details about the four C’s, the setting, the band color, etc, as well as incredibly conflicted about the source of the diamond. In that time, my fiancé, armed with no knowledge about any of those things, nor any care in the world, went out and picked out a ring that looked like something I would like.

It was a huge relief. I assumed the stones weren’t of great quality as there were too many of them (haha) but it didn’t matter. I still think about the care he put into choosing the design, how excited he was to bring it home and how much he anticipated giving it to me. I think about how proud he gets seeing me wearing it, how excited he gets about us being together always, how his eyes dance and sparkle whenever he looks at me, how he literally seems starved if he can’t say he loves me enough times or kiss me enough times a day. All this added more value to the ring than any gem ever could.

So, amidst all the visible superficiality of the wedding expo, with its multitude of greedy sharks and its cold, commercialized industrialization of wedding planning, when this woman basically called my ring worthless to my face without knowing anything about who my fiancé and I were, I realized what mattered more to me about this wedding. I also realized how superficial I had been, even though I had convinced myself all this time that I knew what really mattered. It’s one thing to say you know what’s important and another to really apply it to your actions.

I always knew that you can’t determine how true and loving a relationship is by the amount of money spent on it, but I still got caught up in the details anyway. I was worried about embarrassing us with mismatched colors or the wrong decor. I even let myself believe that having a flawlessly put-together wedding would make my relatives see that my fiancé and I had a great relationship.

After having to put up with the wedding expo, I was also forced to reflect on other couples who had been married before us. There is no correlation whatsoever between how well-planned a wedding is and how successful in a relationship a couple are. Some couples chose not to marry at all, but have been devoted in their relationships far longer than most married couples I know. I also realized I had never let what my relatives might think influence my life decisions and this was not the time to start changing that.

I guess you could consider this my excuse for being lazy, cheap and half-assing everything as of now. Also having long ago come to terms with the fact that I HATE DIY-ing anything, this will have to be a very minimal affair. I decided it was enough to have tablecloths, votives and maybe *a flower* but that’s probably the extent I’ll go in decor. If I have time to do more and I feel like it, then I will have fun with it. Otherwise, who cares if the chairs at the venue are ugly? Our asses are farting into them all through night, why pretend it’s more than that? Who cares what people might think about the lack of floral decor? I don’t even like having plants at home; what do you expect?

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