I don't know what I'd go for

Now, correct me if I'm wrong

- Ian Stewart (expensive, a bit weird, 'unique')
- the coloured dresses
- the size 16 dresses
- the cheaper ones

(was there another one?)

then there's

cakes
the lingerie etc...


I think I'd go for the cheaper dresses and lingerie... lower price higher turnover (hopefully!!) - but I could be madly wrong!

What do other people think?

Having worked on a Stand at a Wedding Fair. And having been to Wedding Fairs as a best friend of the Bride and also a Bride-to-be..... (none of the above being any qualification whatsoever!)

I would choose:

Size 16+ Dresses
Budget Lingerie and Honeymoon Swimwear

er........... what the ecky peck is a "Fong"

The man is a moron!!!!

PMSL at Raef

Wow, so I'd have been wrong with my lower-end choices!

thats what I would have done too

I'd have gone for the 'bigger' size dresses, definately NOT wedding cakes, but perhaps table confetti e.g tiny champagne glasses with tiny cream or coloured roses etc around the stem then maybe a mini bottle of Jack Daniels for the male guests in an attractive box and both these things with personalised names of the married couple!

I wouldn't have bought any dress - not from a wedding show. I probably would buy wedding favours, invitations, things like that.

The BHS ones looked nice. I don't really get the big deal about weddings though. It's usually the woman who is obsessed about her "big day".

Blah!

I would have chosen the Ian Stewart and the accessories

I would have gone for the Ian Stewart ones. He was obviously well established and had good credentials so his dresses would sell. At the price they were selling for, just selling a couple would bring in a lot of cash.
I would have gone with the cakes though. I wouldn't have expected them to be so difficult to sell (but that might have been to do with the sales people).
I'd be more likely to buy a cake at a wedding fair and try to get a good deal, rather than a dress.

Wedding cakes are very often made by relatives or one of the of friends of the families so I wouldnt have chosen cakes.

Seem funny they only had a choice of two between accessories and cakes though.

The weddings I've been to, the cake is professionally made. I know at my wedding I'll get it professionally done as it's the centre piece.

The two choices they were given were worlds apart. But had Sara or Micheal been able to sell just one cake they would have nearly matched Lee's sales.

I don't understand why there was no option for a flowers stand. When I was a model at a wedding fair (I was forced) the most popular stands were the flower ones.

To paraphrase Nick, who spends two grand on a dress from the NEC...

Well, three people, obviously; but I suspect the designer dresses were included as a trap for an unsuspecting team to fall in to. After all, for the first six hours they weren't flogging any.

Actually I wondered why they didnt have that option.

I was surprised they didn't sell any of the cakes. The thing is for most women the whole wedding day shebang is about her being the centre of attention and is an aspirational thing. A lot of women would stretch that extra length just to get the designer dress and special cake.

I wouldn't have gone for the larger size wedding dresses. Providing a representative sample of the population size-wise attended the wedding fayre, you're cutting out a high proportion of potential customers. Also at sale times, the only sizes shops seem to have left are size 8's or sizes 18 plus - they find it difficult to shift those sizes even when they're reduced in price.

I don't know - I think the designer dresses were a good choice, but I was expecting there to be virtually no sales early on. If you're prepared to spend that kind of money on a dress, and you've gone to somewhere like the NEC and this huuuuge show to check out your options, the last thing you want to do (even if you completely fall in love with a dress the moment you walk through the door) is to impulse buy the first dress you see. I'd say Alpha's likely customers would have looked over their stand, and spent the rest of the day wandering around the show with That. Dress. that they loved in the back of their minds as an option to return to. Once you've had a chance to check everything out, that's when you decide to make your move and pay your money, and that's when you revisit that beautiful dress - having spent the entire day convincing yourself you can afford it.

The cakes were a bad idea. It needs the bride and groom to choose the cake together, whereas the dress is the sole choice of the bride (and her mother, usually).

The designer dresses were gorgeous.

I would have gone with the designer dresses. In my opinion the "fongs" etc were a bit tacky. Loved the cakes though. However, I do agree that cake choice is a joint decision and it's obvious that partner's wouldn't be at that event.

I would have gone for the designer dresses but I'm not sure about the accessories although they did sell a lot of that underwear, there's no way I would of sold the cakes, I would have gone for wedding favours or maybe bridal shoes

Ian Stewart and the accessories. The most important purchase a bride will make is her dress, and if you're going to spend a bit of cash, that's what you'll spend it on

who would have a £300 dress and a £600 cake???

One defence Sara and Michael could have used was that even though they didn't sell any cakes on that day, they probably did enough to generate orders later on for the cake-maker, once the brides had gone away and discussed it with the groom.

That's the defence I would have used anyway!

I was very suprised that there was no choice of bridal jewellery for the accessories. Big business, and usually bought for bridesmaids as well. Good profit margin, and something for Mother, Mother-in-Law also. Doesn't need to fit.

Did I hear them say that the BHS ones were in two peice separates? If so, they could have been an option for hard-to fit-figures.