The Wedding Show

So...I registered Kevin and myself to attend a wedding show at the Raleigh Convention Center for January.  You really know you've lost your mind when you sign up for these things and you're not yet engaged and you have to put down that you're "Thinking about October 2012" and instead of them giving you a "Bride to Be" sticker, you get "Future Bride".  Kevin wouldn't even wear his sticker.  I don't blame him!

I actually knew what I was getting myself into as I had worked a wedding show in Durham some years ago while interning for a wedding planner, who is no longer in this area.  I knew it would be booths set up beside each other and it would be loud and every person would be trying to book you on the spot and there would be lots of "drawings" to win something, so I'd be giving out personal information.  And I also knew that I wanted to gather information about the vendors, but didn't necessarily want to put anything in stone.  It was more of a window shopping deal for me.  And if we won something, perfect!

In the weeks leading up to the show, I checked the website multiple times at work to get a look at the vendors and check out their personal webpages...doing my research.  I was looking at the wedding planners that were featured and saw Orangerie Events.  Crazy thing is, I had seen a flier of theirs up in the break room at work and I would look at it everyday while I was heating up my frozen dinner for lunch.  I ran to the break room to make sure it was the same company and after returning to my desk with confirmation, I spent the next hour perusing the website until it was time to go home.  This must have been a Friday, because I literally spent 5 hours the next day, on the couch at my house, reading every word of the blog that owner, Priscilla Erwin, had written and vowing that SHE would be my wedding planner!  No questions!  Why would I even want to meet or work with anyone else?  She was too cute.  Like seriously, you just want to put her in your pocket and take her with you...not in a creepy way, but I knew she could potentially be my best friend!  I liked her writing too!  She wasn't all sunshine and rainbows, she blogged about real things and my mind was made up!  This all happened before the wedding show, so on the day of the show, my goal was to talk to Priscilla and make this thing happen!

We I arrived at the wedding show after walking over from work and proceeded to wait at least an hour for Kevin to join me.  Ugh!  I'm a pretty patient person, but I really wanted to get in there and meet Priscilla and the waiting was just killing me!  When Kevin finally did arrive, we went in and started at one end.  There were department stores trying to register us for china, and formal-wear shops trying to lock us in to get tuxes with them.  There were DJs and videographers and photo booths and cake bakers and photographers and venues and we had already covered 2 aisles out of 4, and there was still no Priscilla.  And then on aisle 3, we found her!  The cutest booth.  Shabby Chic with pastel colors in creamsicle and mint green with splashes of yellow and a cute table and the sweetest bike and a backdrop of cloth streamers.  It was amazing!

Photo stolen from Orangerie Events facebook page.  Not sure who took it!
And this is from August, so the January show was a little different, but the same concept!

Kevin had warned me when I met her to not be creepy (because I was so excited), and so I got really scared and I was sweating and it was a little warm in the room, and I turned red, because that's what people with see-through skin do.  And then I knew I was red and I tried to back-pedal and it didn't work and I got more red in the face!  I pretty much pretended that I knew nothing about her at all and tried to ask random questions that everyone else would ask and wound up with some answers, but as we walked away, I felt like I had been like "yeah, I'd like to work with a wedding planner", when what I was really screaming in my head was, "you could be my new best friend and this is the coolest booth ever and you're booked".  I think I told Kevin that I was upset because I had blown it and I felt like a phony and it didn't go how I wanted it to go at all.  And then he was like "Oh, was that her."  Totally oblivious!  And I wanted to lose it and be like, "yes, that was her and that's why I'm red from embarrassment and acted like a creep".  And Kevin's response was, "well you could have acted like you had read her blog, I just didn't want you to be creepy."  I was done.  The rest of the show didn't matter to me at all.  Priscilla would remember that first impression of me and she would never want to work with me.  I had blown it.

However, I'm me, and I can't just let things go, so I went back for round 2.  Yes!  You heard that right.  If you thought I was embarrassed the first time, imagine going back and saying, "umm, I wanted to come by again because I know all about you and I read your entire blog and I want to work with you...he just told me not to be weird, so I was acting like I didn't know you at all, but it was all wrong and I'm sorry." While still blushing and sweating profusely!  Diarrhea of the mouth!  (if that made you feel awkward, you have no idea...imagine how I acted around boys in middle and high school...it wasn't good, hence the fact that I never had a boyfriend...thank you Jesus for Kevin!)  And Priscilla, being the essence of perfection, didn't even bat an eyelash at the circus standing in front of her, but just had me write down my contact information and was too sweet!  We left and I was still beating myself up for ruining everything.  Kevin, in his infinite wisdom, finally said, "She's probably flattered that you read her entire blog.  After-all, she writes it to get business, and you saw it and read it and now want to book her.  It worked, so she's probably pumped."  And the truth will set you free, folks!  At least after Kevin said it, it became my truth and I won't believe anything else!

And there started us working with Priscilla.  I didn't contact her again until March when we were engaged...and she did remember me, but again, she's so sweet that she may have been making herself completely forget that I had been the freak at the wedding show!  Regardless, it made me feel like I mattered and like our wedding was important to her!  That's all I needed! 
(It's funny too, because I've asked her about the flier that was hanging in the break room at work and she has NO idea how it got there...it must have been fate because I had been looking at it for months on a daily basis.  We were meant to cross paths and I will be forever grateful!)