4 Jan: When I first stepped into Level 3 of the Convention Centre, I was awed by the number of bridal booths and the blissful couples who were buzzing around the area. Beautiful bridal gowns, modeled by mannequins, and each portraying a different personality (saccharine sweet look, an elegant look or even a funky one, you name it, they have it) decorated the entire level. Salesmen and saleswomen welcomed warmly each and every of the potential customers by handing out brochures and talking glibly about their shop's attractive packages. A few professional photographers posed ready with their DSLR, waiting for the perfect moment to capture.
This, is the first major wedding fair of the new year, 2009. The 3-day event was jointly organised by Singapore Press Holding's Lianhe Wanbao and Singapore's highly established wedding and travel magazine, W&T. A total of 23 bridal boutiques participated in this big event, where 18 are local boutiques and 5 from overseas. (www.wedding-travel.com/wt/exhibitors.asp) 
Goodie bags worth over $70 were given out on a first-come-first-serve basis. Strictly for couples only.
The main objective of this wedding fair is for the bridal boutiques to display and offer their products and services to the potential customers. In this case, their targeted customers would be wedding couples. Holding a major event brings the bridal boutiques masses of potential customers all at one go thus, making it easier to introduce/promote/sell their products and services (rental of wedding wear, bridal make-up, wedding photography etc.) widely. However, they would be competing with the others on the left and right to bring more customers to their own booth. To ensure they have enough power to compete, each boutique offers different but equally enticing wedding and honeymoon packages at an affordable price.
Here are two brochures I collected from the fair:
The Wedding & Travel Fair '09 was covered in both English and Chinese print media, namely W&T magazine and Lianhe Wanbao. The event was also introduced in several websites such as www.newasia.com, www.inkiti.com, classifieds.singaporeexpats.com and of course, www.wedding-travel.com. It was most widely reported in Chinese evening daily, Lianhe Wanbao, which had both print and online articles (WB eNEWs) on the event itself.
In conjunction with this event is a competiton, The Singapore Couple 2009. Couples all around Singapore were urged to join and attractive prices could be won. 10 couples were already selected and the finals were held live during the event itself. I think that this competition is great publicity for the event as people would pay more attention.
They can also vote for their favourite couple at the event just by cutting out the coupons from various newspapers. Local celebrities and leading couple in Jack Neo's new movie Love Matters, Henry Thia and Yeo Yann Yann, were the judges for this competition.
The angle that the media took reporting this event was romance, which is what a wedding is based on. There were articles on how the popular practice honeymoon came about, true love stories and how the economy crisis is not affecting the desire to get married.
Another angle would be the showcasing what products and services the participating bridal boutiques have to offer.
I think the coverage is important. Besides letting more people know about this event, it may also provoke them to action. For example, after reading an article talking about how many people are getting married, a potential couple might consider it too and take a look at this event. The articles mentioned about the attractive wedding packages and couples who intend to save on their wedding would also attend the event to find out more. Wedding fashions would definitely attract the ladies; which one wouldn't be looking at those wonderful gowns? And they most probably would pester their boyfriends, fiancés to go to these event.
All in all, I would say that this event is a great success. It attracted the attention of potential wedding couples with the wedding packages and the couple competition. Finding a newspaper publication like Lianhe Wanbao as a co-organiser was a very good move because it ensured wide media coverage of the event. Wanbao can promote the event to Chinese readers while W&T for the English readers. Besides that, the event was also publicised on the Internet which is easy for people to find out about new events as many serve the Net. At the event itself, there was a good variety of bridal boutiques for couples to compare and choose from. The competition was a successful gimmick of the event.
The only thing I think should be improved of the event would be space. The space allocated for the whole event is a little tight. Therefore, the placement of displays were not very well-done. From the ariel view, the place looked a little messy. If I were the manager of the event, I would find a bigger space for the event to take place in. In this way, the booths and their displays can be allocated nicely and it would be better for impression.
Many thanks to www.wedding-travel.com!
