How We Built Our Virginia Wedding Photographer Bridal Show Booth | Destination Wedding Photographer
An informational blog… one of those things I never really thought was really informational until I needed one and so, I thought I would share our experience on how we built our bridal show booth for the Roanoke Wedding Expo in hopes it may help others. Maybe… First things first, I did not do this alone. With a ton of help from my husband, several texts with a photographer friend & A LOT of research on Pinterest and Google, this idea came to life! To keep things simple, I’ve added a couple of cell phone photos of the before, a step by step process of how we created our booth and then some professional photos of the actual set up at the bridal expo. Being transparent, building a bridal show booth wasn’t as hard as I thought creativity wise but physically and monetarily wise, it was a challenge.
The idea. After researching a lot, I fell in love with the ease of using doors as a backdrop. Sleek, professional and homey. However, I had a 10x10 corner booth so I decided to do the doors as one side and the other as a curtain for easy set up/break down and cost effectiveness. The rest of the idea was simple. See the first image of my non-artistic drawing to try and put vision on paper.
The build. Surprisingly, the doors aren’t super heavy, moderately simple to put together, easy to paint and if you scroll to the end, you’ll see I have the perfect place to store it! During our research, my husband and I figured out the doors need to have “feet” to hold them up. Me being picky though, I wanted them hidden. So we found that if we made “L shaped feet” that slide into a “footing”, they would stand up and be flush to the floor. In images 2-4, you’ll see our very amateur but successful footers! After we figured out the footer idea, you’ll see in images 5-6 that I painted the doors to match my brand. I’m not going to lie, this was so much fun! It took a couple of coats but get a roller and it’s easy peasy! After setting them up together, we placed weights on the footers weigh them down, attached the trim with white duck tape (because we didn’t have a staple gun) and used command strips to hang the canvases.
The creativity. After getting our plans together, building the backdrop and painting it was time to be creative! I wanted to show off my photography brand without scaring people away. Being a bride is stressful and there are a lot of decisions to make. I am a fresh newlywed and I know the feeling of being overwhelmed so I wanted to provide a welcoming vibe, not a sensory overload causing potential clients to flee. A lot of my vendor friends commented that it looked like my living room and that was the point. Ironically… none of them knew the rug, some of the frames, the curtains, the small decor AND the tables were all from my living room and the chairs were from my kitchen!! Again, a welcoming space :)
The images. Having figured out what I wanted in the booth, it was time to figure out which images I wanted to share. Being a destination wedding photographer, I wanted to present some of the memories I’ve captured around the world! However, being raised & based in Roanoke, VA, I wanted to make sure brides in our area know I photograph here as well. Exemplifying diversity, all sorts of lighting situations and all sorts of sessions. I chose to have three canvases for the wall, small images framed throughout the space and other products for clients to tangibly experience and my computer circling images in case they wanted to stick around to see more.
The sign. Okay guys, if you’ve scrolled through the images, you’ve seen it… that beautiful and distinguishing sign! We recently did a rebrand of our logo with Marie from August & White to illustrate off our journey into destination wedding photography. Since we were building our bridal expo booth from the ground up, that meant we needed to have a sign. Insert Whitney from Saved by Grace! She was able to transform my logo from digital to physical form and WHOA! Image 7 is the sign in production!
The show. It was finally here, our first big bridal expo! Over 300 brides had signed up and we were so excited! We woke up early, packed everything in our vehicles and started to set up in the Hotel Roanoke Ballroom! Our 10x10 corner spot was up front and easy to see, just waiting for all the brides to come in. It took both my husband and myself to load, setup and break down but he’s a trooper for helping! I picked it up the day before the show and the morning of, we stapled ribbon to it to hang from the curtain for a finished look!
All in all, it was an incredible experience! Through this entire process I realized I flourish both as a Virginia wedding photographer and a destination wedding photographer, not one over the other… because of my couples. The relationships we build and the memories we share. I find myself involuntarily smiling when one of these memories sneaks back into my mind. The glow in Katelynd’s hair during her FREEZING sunrise session in the VA mountains. The amount of cacti that we tried to avoid while wandering through the Arizona desert for Amber & Micah’s elopement. How tranquil and quiet it was on to be alone with Clarisse & Tim after there ceremony. Although we made many trips to Lowe’s (the doors were out of stock several times), my hubby and I had different visions for the build and a footer broke an hour before the show, it was all worth it!
Doors: Lowes
Products: Private Printer
Pillow: Society6
Sign: Saved by Grace
Rug: Wayfair
Business Cards: Moo
Brochures: Vistaprint
Our destination wedding photographer bridal show booth!
Hints of Cabo San Lucas Mexico exclusive resorts, the Blue Ridge mountains of North Carolina, the deserts of Arizona, Punta Cana Dominican Republic lavish beaches, the history of Charleston South Carolina, Charlottesville Virginia and more!
The show is over and time to break it down… or not!
After the show, we brought everything home and I started to think how I was going to store it and keep it clean & fresh. Then it hit me… to save space, I set it up as a wall in my office! My hubby and I have been trying to make our house a home for a while now and thankfully I hadn’t hung anything in my office and now, it makes sense!
