Wedding Expo -- or Exploit?

Last Sunday the EC, Bob and I went to one of the big hotels in our neck of the woods to a wedding expo that had been advertised in one of the vast array of bridal magazines. Since it was a weekend that the EC were going to be home, and since they could go for free -- Bob & I cost $6 each -- we thought it might be fun. Since we haven't found The Cake yet, I was hoping for lots of bakery representatives so we could get an idea of what we might like that would taste better than dry wall with wallpaper paste filling.

Evidently we were way too late in going to an expo as Torrey was dismissed by virtually everyone -- "Oh, you must be all done with your plans." Well, no, not quite. They were wooed by After Hours (Tux place), and bands -- all of whom tried to convince us that they were THE best and everyone else was simply dreadful. They all assured us that they would play just the type of music that we liked -- Chris opined that he would like to hear someone say, just once, "We play whatever we like -- we don't care what you want." But no one did.

They had a fashion show which was supposed to take a 1/2 hour, but was over an hour. We watched bits and pieces of it. I couldn't figure out if the one older woman (my age??) was showing MOB/MOG dresses, or a wedding dress for the "mature" bride. The women in the audience (mostly brides with their girlfriends or moms -- a few intrepid grooms -- Bob was the only FOB that I could see -- brave man) would holler and scream when the males modeling the tuxes would come out and shake their booties for the crowd. The women just modeled. Much nicer.

Meanwhile, Torrey was racing around getting each of the vendors to initial her card so that she could enter a drawing for something -- never quite figured out what. Since we didn't stay until the bitter end, she wasn't present to win....

I loved the table decorations -- there was one showing of those. They've come a long way since one just put a small bunch of nosegays in the middle of the table. All very tall vases -- supposedly so you can see your table companions, with lovely flower arrangements poking out of the top. But expensive!! Yikes!

Looking at everything around us, it was easy to see how people could end up spending a small fortune on just the reception. Most of them are the price of a new car....

I wonder. Was this "expo" just another way to exploit already vulnerable brides who want to make this the most perfect day?