So on Sunday I went to The National Wedding Show in Manchester Central which my wonderful friend Samantha had arranged for me.  I don’t have anything booked as of yet for my wedding. Mark and I haven’t even decided on when or where yet!  So this was more to just get ideas, try on some amazing dresses for the first time and also have a fabulous day out with one of my closest friends.  I really didn’t have to do much before the event as Sam had booked the tickets, was picking me up and had even sorted out the parking!  She really is a star and is uber organised. I have already told her she will be helping with the wedding organising! ha.

The first port of call after walking around to see what was there was to go straight to the wine tasting!  And oh my it was the best wine I have ever tasted.  It was wine by Barefoot Wine.  They had rosé, white, red and bubbly.  Normally I usually only like rosé wine but for the first time ever I actually liked the red wine! I loved all of them!  So of course I bought some 7 bottles in total from a selection of all of them.  It would be rude not to when it was on offer and considering I had probably drank a whole bottle with all the samples I kept tasting!

There were so many stalls there and so many pretty things to look at, it is definitely a place to go to to get some ideas and inspiration.  There are even a few samples and goodies floating about to pick up.  We even had to go back to the car half way though just to drop our bags off as we would not have been able to carry any more.  I have a lot of brochures and booklets to go through and to decide which ones I want to keep and which ones I don’t.

Next was to try on some of the gorgeous dresses, you either had to queue for a while or book a time slot so I didn’t try loads on.

These were the first dresses I tried on and they were amazing, so heavy and hot though, it didn’t help how hot it was in the exhibition either.  The detail on these dresses is amazing though and they are just so pretty.  I can’t wait to get to try more on in a shop and have a bit more time to do it as well.  It was such a great experience to try some dresses on for the first time ever.

That was until I went to try some dresses on with Fairytale Brides.  My experience is my own and I’m sure others had a pleasant experience and really enjoyed it.  Unfortunately I found the staff there were rude to me, and even made me feel awkward when booking a slot to try a dress on due to me not having tried one on before and not having a wedding booked.  I was told to just go into a shop and try one on, which to me defeated the whole point of them even being there!  Without me having a wedding booked I was even asked if I actually had a groom!  Not really the question to ask in my opinion, as it was not even said in jest.  I decided to carry on and try the dresses on there, so I picked two beautiful dresses, one that had been on display at the event and one at the stand itself.  The first one I tried had been on display and I have already taken some snaps of it, but when I had it on Sam was not allowed to take any photos as apparently the designer did not like it, fair enough but it was on display for everyone to take photos the whole day!

Beautiful isn’t it.  The next I picked off the rack they had and I made sure it was in my size.  When coming to try it on the women said to me that it was a small sample and I may not even be able to get it over my hips, so if not I wouldn’t be able to try it.  Now it was the way she said it to me and the way she looked at me, I was quite taken a back by it.  Well I tried it on, and oh guess what it even fitted!  Again we weren’t allowed to take pictures of that one either, but it was a more fitted dress as it was a fishtail style.  I quickly got changed back in to my clothes and left their stand, feeling a little deflated and a little disappointed.  I never expected an experience of trying a wedding dress on to be ruined, it should be magical and something you won’t forget.  Unfortunately I won’t forget that experience for all the wrong reasons.

I put my bad experience behind me, and I’m sure others had a wonderful experience with them.  That was just my personal experience.  I carried on looking around and getting some marvelous ideas.  One idea I would love at my wedding is to have a photo booth, where guests can dress up and take some great photos and as the bride and groom you get a disk of all the photos taken and each guest gets a print out every time they go in the booth!  This is definitely on my list now.  One of the booths was even a car! How amazing is that and you can find it at Av’ A Go Booths.  The other booth is from Boothtique.

It was here that Sam found out she was going to be one of my bridesmaids.  How she didn’t know already I don’t know! ha But she seemed made up by it and it was just before we went into the photo booth where I told her to pick up a sign that said bridesmaid.  Apparently this was the best way to find out, and it was definitely worth seeing the reaction on her face.

You could even have some afternoon tea there, which looked so cute, or you could go to the champagne bar.  We didn’t go to either as we ended up running out of time.

There were also so many yummy treats to try there, think we probably ended up eating too many!  I definitely like the idea of having a sweets table at my wedding though, but that could just be due to how much I love sweets!

Then it was back to looking at all the lovely lovely dresses and a walk around all the stalls again to see anything we may have missed.

I have to finish off with one of the dresses I fell in love with, even though I didn’t get the chance to try it on so I don’t even know if it would suit me.  It was just stunning and I will have to find one in a shop and go and try it on!

This is just a brief account of my first experience at The National Wedding Show and I could ramble on for ages about the whole thing.  I really enjoyed it and I thank Sam for organising the whole thing for me.  It has definitely given me some inspiration to start organising my wedding.  I also can’t wait to drag Sam to some bridal shops and try on lots and lots of dresses!  I also have lots of yummy bottles of wine to get through now as well.  I still can’t get over how nice the wine is and I would highly recommend it to anyone.  The show would have been worth it for the wine alone! hehe.  Did you go to the show? Or have you been to one? Planning a wedding? If so let me know by commenting below, I’d love to hear from you.