Branston Hall Wedding Fair

Wow. What a Fair that was! You know we’re on record as saying that, in our opinion, Branston Hall ranks as one of the two best wedding venues in the county. Well the same goes for their wedding fairs – there are a lot of paltry, piddling little fairs dotted around the county, but this is THE one that brides should visit.
We’ve been exhibiting at Branston since I started Aurora Studio, about 12 years ago. In the good/bad old days it wasa much smaller affair, with only Branston’s recommended suppliers ( and we all had to reach very demanding standards to be on their list) invited to attend. Maybe 50 – 100 brides would pass through their doors on the day.
But times change and nowadays the number of brides is nearer 1000. In recent years the popularity of the Wedding Fair has actually been its problem. All those 1000 brides attended in a four hour period so parking was a nightmare, moving around the Fair was difficult and the stalls were so busy that only a small percentage of brides could actually speak to the suppliers they wanted to.
But the new manager, Dave Robinson took over last autumn and , welll…. new brooms and all that…. he had his own ideas on how the Fair should develop. The most radical was to spread the Fair over two days. If we’re honest most of the suppliers had their doubts – would anyone attend on the Saturday with conflicting pressures of football for the grooms and normal Saturday shopping for the brides? But we were all proved wrong. Quite simply, it worked! Numbers overall were sllightly up but, more importantly, those brides were spread over a ten hour period, instead of four hours. So the stands were not constantly crowded. Brides could have a chat with suppliers and get a much better feel for the level of professionalism they could expect. The whole experience of attending the Fair was vastly improved for everyone.
From our perspective we can only say that the downside has been we’re finding it difficult to find enough evening spots for clients to come around and chat to us with a view to booking us for their wedding. On Monday and Tuesday after the Fair the phones didn’t stop ringing!

Thanks to Branston we’ve met some really nice people whose wedding it will be a real pleasure to cover and we have plenty more booked to see us over the next fortnight. The clients are all giving really positive feedback on the Fair too. With a wide range of prices covered by different vendors in all categories there was something there for everyone and all have benefitted.

ore than ever, the Branston Hall Wedding Fair will be THE Fair to attend next January.