Paddy & Debs: The Wedding Fair - A Grooms Perspective

Paddy & Debs: The Wedding Fair - A Grooms Perspective

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Hello everybody. I hope this finds you well and not suffering too much with the wind and rain that seems to be sweeping across the nation. I personally, am sitting in front of a fire whilst writing this

Today's topics for the blog are wedding fairs from a boys perspective, and a quick recap of where we are with our plans.

I recently went to my first fair. Whilst I'd like to say, in order to preserve some semblance of street cred, I was dragged along, this would be lie. To be honest I was curious. Debs has already got several fairs under her belt and I wanted to see what all the fuss was about. So along I went to Venue Cymru in Llandudno.

On arrival, we were issued Bride and Groom name badges and handed a 'goodie bag' consisting of fliers from all those exhibiting and a cup cake - good start I thought. Who doesn't appreciate a cup cake?

My initial preconception was that it would be full of brides-to-be with differing sizes of entourage comprising of various female members of their family. I wasn't wrong. There were however, and to my surprise, a few other Grooms trying to look interested as their future wives talked dresses, venues, wedding stationery, hair, make up and entertainment with various vendors at a multitude of stalls.

We strolled around the room, chatting with stall owners, picking brains, looking for inspiration and generally repeating the date of our wedding to everyone as they flicked through their diaries to check they were available. We've taken a few pointers from that day and discovered a couple of suppliers who we hope to work with, there certainly are so many amazing companies in this area that it might be hard to make a decision on which to pick.

We also bumped into our venue, Hafod Farm who had a stall at the fair. Those of you who have read our previous blogs they will be known to you, for those that haven't then this is our venue. They are also on RMW Love Lust List.

Joanne and Pete launched Hafod Farm Weddings in August of this year and so far have had a fantastic response, with over 30 other couples booking to get married at their amazing venue. We are so happy for them considering that before we, rather cheekily, approached them they weren't going to do weddings. What both of them have achieved in such a short space of time has to be seen to be believed. The new barn, where we'll put a bar, is ready and they're due to get the marquee sorted very soon for evening entertainment, we can't wait to see it all together.

All in all it was a good day and I would definitely consider going to another one.

However, I have one gripe with the whole experience. Whilst I'm sure vendors and potential suppliers go to hundreds of these events through out the year, speaking to thousands of Brides, if there is a Groom in tow please engage with them. There were a few stall owners that blanked me, and before you ask - no, they weren't hair and makeup. There must be other Grooms out there that are taking an active interest in the wedding and all the preparation. After all, is it not a team effort? By not even acknowledging the presence of the Groom they may run the risk of alienating the couple and therefore potentially loosing out on a sale.

Before there is an outcry from all suppliers, vendors, venues, photographers, entertainers, dress makers, taylors and the like, I know that it's potentially only a handful of people that might only speak to the Bride, and of them most wouldn't do it deliberately, but all I'm saying is that at least acknowledge the fact that there is a couple standing in front of you, not just the Bride. Is it true that the ladies make most of the decisions simply because the gents don't want or can't be bothered to make decisions on all details, or is it because it's 'the girl's big day'? Personally, all I knew about our wedding before I proposed is that I wanted to marry Debs. Planning, it is something that we're doing together, not something that I'm just going along with.

But, as I said earlier, this has not put me off the experience in the slightest, in fact, given another opportunity I would go again.

So, we've got our venue and Debs' dress (well the design), most of our bridal party and an idea of the roles they'll have, a hen party and the entertainment for the wedding party.

Very quickly before we rap this up for another month there are two massively, huge cheers, rounds of applause and high fives to Claire Penn and RMW. Claire made Rangefinder Magazine's top 30 rising stars of wedding photography for 2014. That's the 30 rising stars IN THE WORLD and RMW has won Best Wedding Blog 2014 at the Perfect Wedding Awards. Well done, Team.

On another, completely unrelated note, this week we have welcomed another member into the fold. Her name is Roo. She's 8 weeks old and is currently chewing the wires to the Sky box. More puppy proofing is needed I think. It looks like this year the RMW Real Grooms and Brides are all about pups, just need to work out what to do with them when we get married now.

Anyway. This will be the last post until the new year from myself and Debs, so Merry Christmas and a very Happy New Year (please don't hate me) from all four of us.

Much love,

Paddy and Debs

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