February 9, 2024 • 19 mins
Bruce Thiebauth of Bridal Fair joins me to talk about the show and how brides, styles, economy and fashion have changed weddings in the last 50 years!
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(00:00):
Hi, It's Lucy Chapman and welcometo another edition of Here's More podcast.
Thanks for joining me here. I'vegot a very special guest in the studio
with me today and we're going totalk to him in just a second.
But all this weekend, all thenext couple of weeks, right up until
the twenty fourth, we've got freestuff after five with your chance to pick
(00:24):
up some tickets to the special screeningof the Bob Marley movie One Love and
two tickets to twogether the Bridal Fairthat's going on at the Relevant Center in
Elcorn. So let's get right toit and welcome Bruce theboth. Bruce,
thanks so much for hanging out withme on this podcast. Thank you,
Lucy. I'm glad to be here. Let's give him a title you are.
(00:47):
I am the President CEO of netGang Group, Inc. The parent
company of Bridle Fair that's been inbusiness since nineteen sixty seven. So this
is not your first Bridal Fair.It is not. And by the way,
Bridlefair is a registered FED trademark,so people can't do just anybody can
do a bridle show, but theycan't do a Bridal Fare event. Oh
that is good to Remember, thisis a really great event and it's all
(01:10):
around Valentine's Day. Now, weare taping this before Valentine's Day. But
if you're listening, did you geta ring? If you did, you
need to be here at the BridleFair. It's called Twogether and it's at
the Relevance Center. Now, Bruce, let's talk about bridal fairs. Where
did they start? They started righthere in Omaha, Portland, Oregon,
(01:33):
and Indianapolis, Indiana, as wellas Buffalo, New York. The first
three I mentioned were stations owned byDon Burden here right here in Omaha,
and he had koil and KEFM here, and then of course in Portland he
had Kissing KISN. And interestingly enough, he also owned a station in Indianapolis
under the call letters Wife, Sowe had kissing your Wife and Coyle promoting
(01:59):
it all. I love that story. I've known you for a while.
I've never heard that story, andI'm mad at you for not telling me.
Well, he used to do billboardswhen you came back from the airport
in each city. The one inPortland said, while you've been away,
welcome back, We've been kissing yourwife. And then in Omaha, I
said, Coyle's been spending night andday with your wife, because Don also
(02:20):
owned night and Day formal wear stores, and then in Indianapolis he said,
while you've been away, we've beenspending night and day with your WYF wife.
So he thought, well, I'mjust going to have to put all
these together and have a bridal fair. That's right. Then he started Bridle
Fair in nineteen sixty six. Theydid their first shows in nineteen sixty seven.
I came on board as a salespersonin nineteen seventy two and became sales
(02:45):
manager two years later. And then, like the guy the old Remington ads
where he said I like to shaverso much about the company, I did
that in nineteen seventy six. Well, we're glad you did that first,
well, at least the first onethat you were involved with, which we're
going back to nineteen seventy two.That first bridal fair probably looks very different
from the bridal fairs today. Ohmy gosh. It was. Everything was
(03:05):
so different. But first of allit was almost all women. And of
course things have changed now we havemore guys who come. They don't like
it as much. When we hadconflicts on Super Bowl Sunday, but they
still came. In fact, Iremember in Omaha at one of our shows
back years ago. The show wason Super Bowl Sunday, and I had
one guy who was looking very upset, down trodden as he was being towed
(03:32):
by his bride to be, andI came up to him. I said,
what's the problem and he said,well, it's Super Bowl Sunday.
And I said, well, you'regoing to learn one lesson today, and
that is don't worry about it becausethis is the rest of your life.
And he said, oh, there'llbe other super Bowls, and there'll be
other super Bowls, but there'll onlybe one other her, only her.
(03:53):
The face of the bridal fair innineteen seventy two probably had cakes, it
had invitations, it had the tuxesand maybe some dresses, maybe some venues.
But did you have the DJs?Was that something that they were doing
in seventy two. Yeah, westill had DJ but we also had live
bands. There were a lot morelive bands then, so the DJ movement
(04:15):
was just really starting to build somesteam up. And of course the other
things have changed is you don't seetoo many of these pastel tuxes anymore.
Well, you know, we usedto be somewhat defensive because people say,
well, why do you have allthese other businesses that aren't directly related to
the bride, and they are becauseI always tell retailers the future of all
(04:40):
retail are the new forming households representedby these brides and their future husbands.
Now today, when I talk aboutbrides, I have to talk about them
in many different ways because we nowhave same sex couples and we welcome them
to be there, which is whywe created that sub brand that you mentioned,
the two Gather Show, which isspelled t wog e t h e
(05:01):
R. It's not a misspelling whenyou see it. It was intentional to
show that we are inclusive without beingreal blatant about it. But we have
been told some of the same sexcouples have actually come up to me at
the show and said, thank you. We felt welcome because we knew that
you were telling us somewhat subtly thatwe're welcome here to talk about some of
(05:21):
the retailers that will be at BridalFair together, because it does include the
cakes and the tuxedos and the DJsand all of the things that go along
with a wedding, but it's alsotalking about the couple's future, even retirement
plans. Absolutely. You know,I always say to retailers what I'm doing
(05:43):
presentations to them that it only takesa few hours to walk down the aisle
and have this party afterward called thereception. They spend the rest of their
lives as part of this new householdformation. And that's why I say it's
the future of all retail because theywill be buying all sorts of things.
And you know, it's a compression. We used to call it a market
of compression because they do all ofthese things in a very short period of
(06:04):
time. Most of their purchases madesurrounding the wedding are from about three months
prior to three months after the wedding, So if you don't reach them,
then you could miss out. Andthe brides appreciate it because they can come
and talk to these people and findout is this the person I wanted and
trust my very important day, mywedding to. And I think you might
(06:27):
remember I have two degrees. Oneis in business and the others in sociology,
so I enjoy that side of it. Looking at the marketing hand,
yeah, it is handy. Itturned out to be very I had no
idea when I did it that itwould be just as handy as it is,
but it turned out to be atany rate. That's why I have
a really good feeling about these couples, and I know that by giving them
(06:47):
a more Actually, I can tellyou numerically there are about twenty five core
group categories that are what you thinkof when you say wedding. You think
of, as you said, thegowns, the flowers, the photographer.
But when you expand the categories tothe new forming household, it gets up
to around over eighty categories of businessthat are impacted. We have real estate
(07:08):
companies in our show. We havecar dealers. Sometimes we have well,
we have three new category two Ishould say, brand new categories. This
year, we have a party busthat will be there. It's a brand
new business, Premiere party Buses.A friend of mine has started this company.
He said, Bruce, I wantto be part of your bridal fair
show. They will be right outsidethe relevance center and you'll be able to
(07:32):
go inside and see it, soyou'll be able to experience the party bus.
I think the one he's going tohave there will hold twenty eight people
and we're giving away, Lucy,I didn't even tell you this. We're
giving away the use of that partybus for your wedding to un lucky bride.
It's valued at almost one thousand dollars. Almost makes me want to go
get married. Yeah, I know. And if you're listening and if you're
(07:56):
getting married and you're going to haveall these guests coming to your reception that
are going to be giving We alsohave a brand new category I've never had
in our show before. It's agift wrap company. It's called Easy Gift
rap Kits and they do these uniquegift wrappings that are different than any I've
ever seen before. They're only availablefrom this new business and they're part of
our show this year for the firsttime. If you bring your parents along
(08:18):
with you to the Bridal Fair,and they're absolutely welcome, Absolutely you bring
them, and there are places forhoneymoons that you can sign up for and
get information on or maybe even helpingthem with starting an account for them.
You know, this is a goodplace for your parents to see where they
might be getting able to get youan even better gift. Absolutely, but
(08:39):
it is all about helping the newcouple get started. It is, and
you know there's another little side marketthat's at work here. I have an
old saying. I used to tellretailers that when brides are getting married,
parents redecorate because you've got an averageof twenty eight out of town guests who
(09:00):
come in for each wedding, that'sthe statistical number. And so you've got
all these people coming in. Andmom is in the living room one morning
as the wedding's approaching, and shegoes, she's looking at the couch and
there's a little tattered corner on thearm, and she goes, well,
we're gonna need a new couch.And then they go maybe to one of
our popular furniture dealers, and thenthey realize, well, in addition to
(09:20):
the couch, now we might needto because this couch that we like,
we need new carpeting and wallpaper.And before you know it, they've redecorated
the entire part of the house thatpeople are going to see if they come
to one of the parties. Soit's very important to understand that there are
a whole lot of things going on, a lot of dynamics that people don't
(09:41):
think about. When you say wedding, but they're happening, and they're very
important and it's very monetarily rewarding.One of the things people think when they
hear Bridal Fair is the twenty somethingnewly engaged, big party plans and all
of the things that go along withit. But you're also talking to the
(10:01):
women or the men who have beenmarried already, maybe once, maybe twice,
and there are things here at theBridle Fair for them as well.
Well. They need to go fora couple of reasons, and a lot
of cases they're going to do alet's say, a destination wedding for a
close group of friends and it's almostlike the second doing of the vows where
(10:22):
they say their vows again. Inthis case it's a whole new set of
players, but the dynamics are there. Maybe maybe they want to go to
Hawaii or to the Caribbean and havethis destination party. That's a wedding.
I know one of my own relativesdid it. They actually had their wedding
out in California along the beach,and then they had a reception about three
(10:45):
months later for all their friends backin Arizona where they were living. So
it's so many things that happen thatyou don't think about, as you said,
correctly, you don't think about thatwhen you say wedding or bridle fair.
But that's what's going on. Andwe have so many things that people
are going to be involved with thatwe want to help them get those things.
And if they're planning a trip,for example, we have enchanted honeymoons
(11:09):
that will be there to help themwith their planning. And if you want
to buy a house, you'd goto Owner real Estate and buy a house.
Believe it or not. The veryfirst year that company was in our
show, they sold a house withinabout a month after the show, and
they've been with me ever since.Bruce. The brides that you see coming
through bridal fairs, how have theychanged over the years, Well, they're
(11:31):
older. I used to have alittle joke. I would tell clients when
I was doing presentations that if Icould bottle this formula, I'd make a
billion dollars and they go, whatformula? Well, I said, when
I started with this company back innineteen seventy two, the average age of
a bride was actually pre twenty.They were in their late teens nineteen Yeah,
(11:52):
and now they're in their late twentySo my joke was if I could
bottle the formula that let them ageten years and not show it, that
would be great. Right, they'reten years older, but nobody knows,
so they're older. And that's economicallyspeaking. You know, I have a
lot of my college credits on mybusiness degree. We're in finance and economics.
(12:16):
And one of the things that happensis as they get older, they
have more money to spend. They'reestablished in their careers. So sociologically speaking,
this is a great economic unit totalk to. And you have people
who have been through that marriage alreadyand maybe looking at a second wedding,
and I'm not sure if they're goingto want to be there. And we
(12:39):
were there last year and we're goingto be there again this year, Kgar
and Gina with kat one O threeand we saw a lot of different things
at Bridal Fair last year that maybepeople aren't really thinking about for a second
celebration. Well, yeah, youcan't put blinders on when you look at
this event. It's got so manydynamics going on. We had years ago.
(13:01):
I had a fellow that was inour show with a venue and he
was handing out these nice packets.I think he spent a fortune on these
packets, and he handed them outto bride'es and he'd asked them, have
you selected your venue yet? Andthis one bride said, well, actually
I have, and he said,well, here, I'm going to give
you the packet. Anyway you couldpass it on to one of your friends.
Well, apparently, as I hearthe story retold by him to me
(13:24):
later that night, the bride hadspread all of her goodies out over her
bed and was looking through all thebrochures and what have you, and the
packet with the special offer that thisfellow had made for his venue for any
bridalfair bride was sitting there and herfather came in and he was looking through
and he saw this. It turnedout he was planning a big business event
(13:48):
and he needed a venue and hesaid, I wonder if this guy will
give me this price, this packageif it's not for a wedding. So
we called him and he asked,he said, well, sure, I
will booked to twenty five thousand dollarsevent from through a bride that wasn't even
going to be booking her venue withhim, but his the father did I
(14:09):
how has the economy affected brides today. I was over by the West Roads
yesterday and I noticed the Bridle shopup there, and I'm not sure that
they're still in business or if they'vechanged hands. So we are seeing some
businesses changing. Well. In thecase of the one you're thinking about,
they went through a bankruptcy and thenthey were bought out by a new group
(14:31):
and they used to do our fashionshow and they're not going to be doing
it this year only because they're notdoing any of the bridal shows in Nebraska
because they've concentrated their budget on largercities. They said they'll probably be back
with us next year or later,but they just didn't have the budget this
year. Well, we have abrand new sponsor of our fashion show,
(14:52):
Spotlight Bridle. We'll be doing ourfashion show, but we also have and
they're not in our fashion show,but they'll be at a at a beautiful
three booth area in that special showroomwe call the showcase. And they bought
out the Tip Top Tux people thatwent under and it's Skeffington's Formal where they're
coming in. They've come into themarket. They bought that store they're open
(15:13):
now and they're doing this beautiful displayof three booths in the showcase room and
we're excited to have them as partof our show as a brand new vendor
in Omaha. So how would yousay the economy is affecting brides directly?
I always have these sayings, youknow, and I've been encouraged to write
a book about all my experiences andwhat I've learned in this industry. One
of my little sayings that I hadis that brides refuse to take time out
(15:39):
from their wedding planning to celebrate arecession. I love it, and that's
so true. This is a mysociological side says, this is a right
of passage. You don't want toget in the way of this force.
This is a bride and her motherwho, by the way, the mothers
often are reliving their wedding through theirbride by carry or they're having the one
(16:02):
they never had, and so thisis a force. As for those who
remember the movie Father of the Bridewith Steve Martin and Marty Short, you
know, Marty came up to SteveMartin said you need more taxados, more
taxados, and the budget. Ithink the budget went from an original plan
of fifty thousand dollars of this weddingwent up to a quarter a million dollars
and Steve Martin was having art attacks. Luckily he had lots of money and
(16:23):
could afford it. But that's what'sgoing on in this market. The bride
is having the day that she isgoing to have one of the most important
days of her life, if notthe most important day of the day she
was born. Is going to havethis experience and she wants it to be
perfect, and she wants it tobe everything she dreamed it would be since
(16:45):
she was a young lady. Sothis is the force that we're dealing with.
So it's not going to be impactedheavily by the recession. Yes,
they might cut back a little ontheir overall budget because prices are higher and
what have you, but they're goingto have it and it's going to happen.
And that's why you need to beat Bridal Fair because you're going to
get package deals and discounts. Andwe like to tell our retailers, don't
(17:08):
do discounts, do special value addedpackages, because we know that brides are
very smart today, they're very shrewdthey know that people can mark things up
to accommodate the discounts, but youcan't do that with a special value added.
So in other words, if youspend a certain amount of money in
their store, you get to redeema certificate worth fifty or one hundred dollars
(17:29):
towards that. It's much more impressiveto the bride and she knows that she's
not being manipulated, and that's important. But there's so many opportunities through them
visits in person, face to facewith these brides. That's what's very important
for these retailers and service businesses.And one of the things we have and
the brides will love this. Wehave our Passport to prizes and every bride
(17:53):
has a chance to win a prizefrom each and every one of these vendors,
but they have to have their passportvalidated by going to that booth and
talking with them, having it validated, and then at the end of the
show we have the names of thewinners posted in each display, so they
get two visits they know right thenthat day. And to help your budget,
(18:15):
if you want to go to theBridle Fair for free, just listen
to Kgoar weekdays for the next coupleof weeks until the twenty third, and
you could win tickets to Bridlefair togetheron free stuff after five, along with
a pair of tickets to the specialscreening of the Bob Marley movie One Love.
We have so many yesterdays, that'swhy we can help you plan your
(18:37):
tomorrow's and got the rock then rollthe Bridle Fair. I love it,
Bruce. You can come in andtalk to me anytime. Well, thank
you, Lucy. I love comingin and having a chance to chat with
you. Okay, Bruce, tellus one more time. It's Bridle Fair
at the Relevance Center on February twentyfourth, and it's ten o'clock opening,
one thirty closing. Fashion show isat eleventh third and it's an incredible fashion
(19:00):
show presented by our very fine producerWendy from Tulsa. Believe it or not,
she comes all the way up fromTulsa and she works with Alyssa here
at developed models to do a stunningfashion show in front of a forty foot
wide, fifteen foot high led TVscreen, so the models will be in
front of waterfalls and waves breaking onthe beach. It's just an impressive visual
(19:26):
display I can't wait to see it. Website website is bridlefair dot com Really
hard to remember. Well, hopefullywe will see you there at Bridalfair at
the Relevant Center that's coming up onFebruary twenty fourth. Bruce, thank you
so much for hanging out with ustoday on this podcast. I'll be there
with wedding bells on
Hi, It's Lucy Chapman and welcometo another edition of Here's More podcast.
Thanks for joining me here. I'vegot a very special guest in the studio
with me today and we're going totalk to him in just a second.
But all this weekend, all thenext couple of weeks, right up until
the twenty fourth, we've got freestuff after five with your chance to pick
(00:24):
up some tickets to the special screeningof the Bob Marley movie One Love and
two tickets to twogether the Bridal Fairthat's going on at the Relevant Center in
Elcorn. So let's get right toit and welcome Bruce theboth. Bruce,
thanks so much for hanging out withme on this podcast. Thank you,
Lucy. I'm glad to be here. Let's give him a title you are.
(00:47):
I am the President CEO of netGang Group, Inc. The parent
company of Bridle Fair that's been inbusiness since nineteen sixty seven. So this
is not your first Bridal Fair.It is not. And by the way,
Bridlefair is a registered FED trademark,so people can't do just anybody can
do a bridle show, but theycan't do a Bridal Fare event. Oh
that is good to Remember, thisis a really great event and it's all
(01:10):
around Valentine's Day. Now, weare taping this before Valentine's Day. But
if you're listening, did you geta ring? If you did, you
need to be here at the BridleFair. It's called Twogether and it's at
the Relevance Center. Now, Bruce, let's talk about bridal fairs. Where
did they start? They started righthere in Omaha, Portland, Oregon,
(01:33):
and Indianapolis, Indiana, as wellas Buffalo, New York. The first
three I mentioned were stations owned byDon Burden here right here in Omaha,
and he had koil and KEFM here, and then of course in Portland he
had Kissing KISN. And interestingly enough, he also owned a station in Indianapolis
under the call letters Wife, Sowe had kissing your Wife and Coyle promoting
(01:59):
it all. I love that story. I've known you for a while.
I've never heard that story, andI'm mad at you for not telling me.
Well, he used to do billboardswhen you came back from the airport
in each city. The one inPortland said, while you've been away,
welcome back, We've been kissing yourwife. And then in Omaha, I
said, Coyle's been spending night andday with your wife, because Don also
(02:20):
owned night and Day formal wear stores, and then in Indianapolis he said,
while you've been away, we've beenspending night and day with your WYF wife.
So he thought, well, I'mjust going to have to put all
these together and have a bridal fair. That's right. Then he started Bridle
Fair in nineteen sixty six. Theydid their first shows in nineteen sixty seven.
I came on board as a salespersonin nineteen seventy two and became sales
(02:45):
manager two years later. And then, like the guy the old Remington ads
where he said I like to shaverso much about the company, I did
that in nineteen seventy six. Well, we're glad you did that first,
well, at least the first onethat you were involved with, which we're
going back to nineteen seventy two.That first bridal fair probably looks very different
from the bridal fairs today. Ohmy gosh. It was. Everything was
(03:05):
so different. But first of allit was almost all women. And of
course things have changed now we havemore guys who come. They don't like
it as much. When we hadconflicts on Super Bowl Sunday, but they
still came. In fact, Iremember in Omaha at one of our shows
back years ago. The show wason Super Bowl Sunday, and I had
one guy who was looking very upset, down trodden as he was being towed
(03:32):
by his bride to be, andI came up to him. I said,
what's the problem and he said,well, it's Super Bowl Sunday.
And I said, well, you'regoing to learn one lesson today, and
that is don't worry about it becausethis is the rest of your life.
And he said, oh, there'llbe other super Bowls, and there'll be
other super Bowls, but there'll onlybe one other her, only her.
(03:53):
The face of the bridal fair innineteen seventy two probably had cakes, it
had invitations, it had the tuxesand maybe some dresses, maybe some venues.
But did you have the DJs?Was that something that they were doing
in seventy two. Yeah, westill had DJ but we also had live
bands. There were a lot morelive bands then, so the DJ movement
(04:15):
was just really starting to build somesteam up. And of course the other
things have changed is you don't seetoo many of these pastel tuxes anymore.
Well, you know, we usedto be somewhat defensive because people say,
well, why do you have allthese other businesses that aren't directly related to
the bride, and they are becauseI always tell retailers the future of all
(04:40):
retail are the new forming households representedby these brides and their future husbands.
Now today, when I talk aboutbrides, I have to talk about them
in many different ways because we nowhave same sex couples and we welcome them
to be there, which is whywe created that sub brand that you mentioned,
the two Gather Show, which isspelled t wog e t h e
(05:01):
R. It's not a misspelling whenyou see it. It was intentional to
show that we are inclusive without beingreal blatant about it. But we have
been told some of the same sexcouples have actually come up to me at
the show and said, thank you. We felt welcome because we knew that
you were telling us somewhat subtly thatwe're welcome here to talk about some of
(05:21):
the retailers that will be at BridalFair together, because it does include the
cakes and the tuxedos and the DJsand all of the things that go along
with a wedding, but it's alsotalking about the couple's future, even retirement
plans. Absolutely. You know,I always say to retailers what I'm doing
(05:43):
presentations to them that it only takesa few hours to walk down the aisle
and have this party afterward called thereception. They spend the rest of their
lives as part of this new householdformation. And that's why I say it's
the future of all retail because theywill be buying all sorts of things.
And you know, it's a compression. We used to call it a market
of compression because they do all ofthese things in a very short period of
(06:04):
time. Most of their purchases madesurrounding the wedding are from about three months
prior to three months after the wedding, So if you don't reach them,
then you could miss out. Andthe brides appreciate it because they can come
and talk to these people and findout is this the person I wanted and
trust my very important day, mywedding to. And I think you might
(06:27):
remember I have two degrees. Oneis in business and the others in sociology,
so I enjoy that side of it. Looking at the marketing hand,
yeah, it is handy. Itturned out to be very I had no
idea when I did it that itwould be just as handy as it is,
but it turned out to be atany rate. That's why I have
a really good feeling about these couples, and I know that by giving them
(06:47):
a more Actually, I can tellyou numerically there are about twenty five core
group categories that are what you thinkof when you say wedding. You think
of, as you said, thegowns, the flowers, the photographer.
But when you expand the categories tothe new forming household, it gets up
to around over eighty categories of businessthat are impacted. We have real estate
(07:08):
companies in our show. We havecar dealers. Sometimes we have well,
we have three new category two Ishould say, brand new categories. This
year, we have a party busthat will be there. It's a brand
new business, Premiere party Buses.A friend of mine has started this company.
He said, Bruce, I wantto be part of your bridal fair
show. They will be right outsidethe relevance center and you'll be able to
(07:32):
go inside and see it, soyou'll be able to experience the party bus.
I think the one he's going tohave there will hold twenty eight people
and we're giving away, Lucy,I didn't even tell you this. We're
giving away the use of that partybus for your wedding to un lucky bride.
It's valued at almost one thousand dollars. Almost makes me want to go
get married. Yeah, I know. And if you're listening and if you're
(07:56):
getting married and you're going to haveall these guests coming to your reception that
are going to be giving We alsohave a brand new category I've never had
in our show before. It's agift wrap company. It's called Easy Gift
rap Kits and they do these uniquegift wrappings that are different than any I've
ever seen before. They're only availablefrom this new business and they're part of
our show this year for the firsttime. If you bring your parents along
(08:18):
with you to the Bridal Fair,and they're absolutely welcome, Absolutely you bring
them, and there are places forhoneymoons that you can sign up for and
get information on or maybe even helpingthem with starting an account for them.
You know, this is a goodplace for your parents to see where they
might be getting able to get youan even better gift. Absolutely, but
(08:39):
it is all about helping the newcouple get started. It is, and
you know there's another little side marketthat's at work here. I have an
old saying. I used to tellretailers that when brides are getting married,
parents redecorate because you've got an averageof twenty eight out of town guests who
(09:00):
come in for each wedding, that'sthe statistical number. And so you've got
all these people coming in. Andmom is in the living room one morning
as the wedding's approaching, and shegoes, she's looking at the couch and
there's a little tattered corner on thearm, and she goes, well,
we're gonna need a new couch.And then they go maybe to one of
our popular furniture dealers, and thenthey realize, well, in addition to
(09:20):
the couch, now we might needto because this couch that we like,
we need new carpeting and wallpaper.And before you know it, they've redecorated
the entire part of the house thatpeople are going to see if they come
to one of the parties. Soit's very important to understand that there are
a whole lot of things going on, a lot of dynamics that people don't
(09:41):
think about. When you say wedding, but they're happening, and they're very
important and it's very monetarily rewarding.One of the things people think when they
hear Bridal Fair is the twenty somethingnewly engaged, big party plans and all
of the things that go along withit. But you're also talking to the
(10:01):
women or the men who have beenmarried already, maybe once, maybe twice,
and there are things here at theBridle Fair for them as well.
Well. They need to go fora couple of reasons, and a lot
of cases they're going to do alet's say, a destination wedding for a
close group of friends and it's almostlike the second doing of the vows where
(10:22):
they say their vows again. Inthis case it's a whole new set of
players, but the dynamics are there. Maybe maybe they want to go to
Hawaii or to the Caribbean and havethis destination party. That's a wedding.
I know one of my own relativesdid it. They actually had their wedding
out in California along the beach,and then they had a reception about three
(10:45):
months later for all their friends backin Arizona where they were living. So
it's so many things that happen thatyou don't think about, as you said,
correctly, you don't think about thatwhen you say wedding or bridle fair.
But that's what's going on. Andwe have so many things that people
are going to be involved with thatwe want to help them get those things.
And if they're planning a trip,for example, we have enchanted honeymoons
(11:09):
that will be there to help themwith their planning. And if you want
to buy a house, you'd goto Owner real Estate and buy a house.
Believe it or not. The veryfirst year that company was in our
show, they sold a house withinabout a month after the show, and
they've been with me ever since.Bruce. The brides that you see coming
through bridal fairs, how have theychanged over the years, Well, they're
(11:31):
older. I used to have alittle joke. I would tell clients when
I was doing presentations that if Icould bottle this formula, I'd make a
billion dollars and they go, whatformula? Well, I said, when
I started with this company back innineteen seventy two, the average age of
a bride was actually pre twenty.They were in their late teens nineteen Yeah,
(11:52):
and now they're in their late twentySo my joke was if I could
bottle the formula that let them ageten years and not show it, that
would be great. Right, they'reten years older, but nobody knows,
so they're older. And that's economicallyspeaking. You know, I have a
lot of my college credits on mybusiness degree. We're in finance and economics.
(12:16):
And one of the things that happensis as they get older, they
have more money to spend. They'reestablished in their careers. So sociologically speaking,
this is a great economic unit totalk to. And you have people
who have been through that marriage alreadyand maybe looking at a second wedding,
and I'm not sure if they're goingto want to be there. And we
(12:39):
were there last year and we're goingto be there again this year, Kgar
and Gina with kat one O threeand we saw a lot of different things
at Bridal Fair last year that maybepeople aren't really thinking about for a second
celebration. Well, yeah, youcan't put blinders on when you look at
this event. It's got so manydynamics going on. We had years ago.
(13:01):
I had a fellow that was inour show with a venue and he
was handing out these nice packets.I think he spent a fortune on these
packets, and he handed them outto bride'es and he'd asked them, have
you selected your venue yet? Andthis one bride said, well, actually
I have, and he said,well, here, I'm going to give
you the packet. Anyway you couldpass it on to one of your friends.
Well, apparently, as I hearthe story retold by him to me
(13:24):
later that night, the bride hadspread all of her goodies out over her
bed and was looking through all thebrochures and what have you, and the
packet with the special offer that thisfellow had made for his venue for any
bridalfair bride was sitting there and herfather came in and he was looking through
and he saw this. It turnedout he was planning a big business event
(13:48):
and he needed a venue and hesaid, I wonder if this guy will
give me this price, this packageif it's not for a wedding. So
we called him and he asked,he said, well, sure, I
will booked to twenty five thousand dollarsevent from through a bride that wasn't even
going to be booking her venue withhim, but his the father did I
(14:09):
how has the economy affected brides today. I was over by the West Roads
yesterday and I noticed the Bridle shopup there, and I'm not sure that
they're still in business or if they'vechanged hands. So we are seeing some
businesses changing. Well. In thecase of the one you're thinking about,
they went through a bankruptcy and thenthey were bought out by a new group
(14:31):
and they used to do our fashionshow and they're not going to be doing
it this year only because they're notdoing any of the bridal shows in Nebraska
because they've concentrated their budget on largercities. They said they'll probably be back
with us next year or later,but they just didn't have the budget this
year. Well, we have abrand new sponsor of our fashion show,
(14:52):
Spotlight Bridle. We'll be doing ourfashion show, but we also have and
they're not in our fashion show,but they'll be at a at a beautiful
three booth area in that special showroomwe call the showcase. And they bought
out the Tip Top Tux people thatwent under and it's Skeffington's Formal where they're
coming in. They've come into themarket. They bought that store they're open
(15:13):
now and they're doing this beautiful displayof three booths in the showcase room and
we're excited to have them as partof our show as a brand new vendor
in Omaha. So how would yousay the economy is affecting brides directly?
I always have these sayings, youknow, and I've been encouraged to write
a book about all my experiences andwhat I've learned in this industry. One
of my little sayings that I hadis that brides refuse to take time out
(15:39):
from their wedding planning to celebrate arecession. I love it, and that's
so true. This is a mysociological side says, this is a right
of passage. You don't want toget in the way of this force.
This is a bride and her motherwho, by the way, the mothers
often are reliving their wedding through theirbride by carry or they're having the one
(16:02):
they never had, and so thisis a force. As for those who
remember the movie Father of the Bridewith Steve Martin and Marty Short, you
know, Marty came up to SteveMartin said you need more taxados, more
taxados, and the budget. Ithink the budget went from an original plan
of fifty thousand dollars of this weddingwent up to a quarter a million dollars
and Steve Martin was having art attacks. Luckily he had lots of money and
(16:23):
could afford it. But that's what'sgoing on in this market. The bride
is having the day that she isgoing to have one of the most important
days of her life, if notthe most important day of the day she
was born. Is going to havethis experience and she wants it to be
perfect, and she wants it tobe everything she dreamed it would be since
(16:45):
she was a young lady. Sothis is the force that we're dealing with.
So it's not going to be impactedheavily by the recession. Yes,
they might cut back a little ontheir overall budget because prices are higher and
what have you, but they're goingto have it and it's going to happen.
And that's why you need to beat Bridal Fair because you're going to
get package deals and discounts. Andwe like to tell our retailers, don't
(17:08):
do discounts, do special value addedpackages, because we know that brides are
very smart today, they're very shrewdthey know that people can mark things up
to accommodate the discounts, but youcan't do that with a special value added.
So in other words, if youspend a certain amount of money in
their store, you get to redeema certificate worth fifty or one hundred dollars
(17:29):
towards that. It's much more impressiveto the bride and she knows that she's
not being manipulated, and that's important. But there's so many opportunities through them
visits in person, face to facewith these brides. That's what's very important
for these retailers and service businesses.And one of the things we have and
the brides will love this. Wehave our Passport to prizes and every bride
(17:53):
has a chance to win a prizefrom each and every one of these vendors,
but they have to have their passportvalidated by going to that booth and
talking with them, having it validated, and then at the end of the
show we have the names of thewinners posted in each display, so they
get two visits they know right thenthat day. And to help your budget,
(18:15):
if you want to go to theBridle Fair for free, just listen
to Kgoar weekdays for the next coupleof weeks until the twenty third, and
you could win tickets to Bridlefair togetheron free stuff after five, along with
a pair of tickets to the specialscreening of the Bob Marley movie One Love.
We have so many yesterdays, that'swhy we can help you plan your
(18:37):
tomorrow's and got the rock then rollthe Bridle Fair. I love it,
Bruce. You can come in andtalk to me anytime. Well, thank
you, Lucy. I love comingin and having a chance to chat with
you. Okay, Bruce, tellus one more time. It's Bridle Fair
at the Relevance Center on February twentyfourth, and it's ten o'clock opening,
one thirty closing. Fashion show isat eleventh third and it's an incredible fashion
(19:00):
show presented by our very fine producerWendy from Tulsa. Believe it or not,
she comes all the way up fromTulsa and she works with Alyssa here
at developed models to do a stunningfashion show in front of a forty foot
wide, fifteen foot high led TVscreen, so the models will be in
front of waterfalls and waves breaking onthe beach. It's just an impressive visual
(19:26):
display I can't wait to see it. Website website is bridlefair dot com Really
hard to remember. Well, hopefullywe will see you there at Bridalfair at
the Relevant Center that's coming up onFebruary twenty fourth. Bruce, thank you
so much for hanging out with ustoday on this podcast. I'll be there
with wedding bells on
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