The "fongs" were definitely a bit tacky, but perfect for a high turnover from sales, as they didn't cost an awful lot and are the kind of thing that people buy as silly gifts for the bride at her hen party etc.

I definately would have gone for the honeymoon tack. Its an easy sell, not imput from anyone else required and women caught up in their wedding dress shopping would make a snap decision on the £10/£15 quid.

Dress wise - I'd have tried to research the fair to see if there would be many other plus size designers there. It was my first thought, but from the brief glimse we got those dresses were fraking hideous (like a lot of plus size stuff, designers seem to think us fatties want to wear garish tents) so I would have gone high end.

The high end stuff was never going to sell at the beginning of the day but I'd have taken the risk on someone setting just one day for the dress search. trying it on early, looking for something else and not finding anything that came close.

As soon as the choices were made I knew Lucinda's team had it in the bag.

with Lee doing so well on the accessories they only needed one dress to win and there were thousands of people there, not all of them hunting for a cheap bargain!

As a recent bride, and having been to the National Wedding Show before (be it the London one of the same show), I would have chosen the BHS dresses and the lingerie, given the choices they had.

Ian Stuart dresses are "dreams". As Raef said, very high risk strategy, but I knew as I watched it that they would likely only get a couple of sales, and only towards the end of the day. Kavanaugh is spot on with the reasons why. But that's all they needed to win anyway. As for the lingerie, it's a perfect choice for a wedding fair. When I went, I only ever bought small things that the groom wouldn't be interested in and that didn't cost too much. So as soon as I saw both items I knew that provided they got even just one dress sale, they were likely to win. I mainly viewed each wedding fair as an information-gathering excercise.

Coloured dresses - interesting idea, but not mainstream. Wedding fairs are for mainstream customers I'm afraid! If they were bespoke, by a very well known designer, and more expensive, the idea is great, but they looked cheap and no one wants to look cheap on their big day - there are plenty of designers out there who can design beautiful pieces without the Ian Stuart design tag and BHS were a perfect example of that. I would definitely have gone with that as a safe bet, but only if the other team did NOT go for Ian Stuart, as if that had happened, I'd wave the white flag before even starting, knowing that they only needed a couple of sales to win whereas I would need about 30 to even come close.

Cake is a big no no nowadays. With weddings being so expensive, it is rare that you will find a "normal" budget bride who considers the cake to be worthy of spending so much of the budget on. For mine, I just had an M&S cake, but spent a bit more on a personalised topper - something I can keep! If THAT had been an option in the Apprentice, I would have gone for that - toppers instead of the cake itself.

Jewellry and shoes would also have been a fab addition to the dresses.

I think the wedding cake option was unfair, whoever ended up with it were on to a loser as most people do not go to the fair to actually buy a cake. Cakes are sort of a family thing and involve discussion not a quick sale.

I would have opted for the Ian range or the size 16 plus

I was surprised that they sold any Ian Stewart dresses TBH, I really didn't think anyone would spend that amount of money on the spot; even if a girl liked a dress, she would surely go away and think about it & compare a few (OK, a hundred) others, over a period of time before making a big decision like that?

I think the coloured dresses could have been marketed better as suitable for beach weddings, weddings abroad etc.. I'd have trimmed up the stand with palm trees etc, and sold to people who were doing the smaller wedding overseas thing, often on a lower budget.

Wouldn't have seen the point in the BHS ones, anyone can get to a BHS.

Again, cakes are not going to be ordered on the spot. They would have been better with volume of lower priced stuff like jewellery, favours, accessories, decorations etc.

At an event like that you need to have something that is different and that the bride can't get elsewhere.

We didn't really get to see what other options there were.

Also, it was hard for any of them to sell with absolutely no flexibility on price.

I went to a local bakery on my own, asked the prices and ordered the cheapest. I didn't even bother looking at samples.
I don't like cake anyway.,

Were they given the option of stationery?

Ian Stewart dresses and the cakes for me. They both looked yummy!

I thought Lucinda's team made the perfect choice. I can't see them selling enough of any of the other dresses to compete. They only had a day and would have had to sell about 10 of the cheaper desses to Ian Stewart's one. Then they had the low range cheap stuff to balance things if the expensive dresses didn't sell.

I thought the Ian Stewart ones were fab, so they were ny initial choice. Then I saw the BHS range and thought they would sell well, and I also thought the plus-sized dresses would too!
I worked in BHS few years ago, and the bridal range was very popular.
In the end though I agreed with the deciion to sell Ian Stewart's range - it's good to take a risk, and I think SirAlan respected that.
Also, the accessories were my other choice, and if ladies are spending a fair bit of their money on a dress - whether Ian Stewart or other design - then they'd want to save on other things like accessories. Flowers and cakes can be generally the higher spends for a wedding.

I assume SirAlan's team would've researched what sells at wedding fairs, so opting for cakes and accessories would've shown just how well their sales skills came into play, as cakes seem to be a big decision for people to decide upon.

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yes I agree - I would have chosen those too.

Well, personally, my cake was more expensive than my dress but I didn't intentionally do that. That's just the way it happened. It wasn't my first time around (if you know what I mean) and I spent more on a photographer and the cake than my dress. Wouldn't have changed a thing.

What other 'extra services' did they actually get to choose from though? I would have thought if there were hen night things, jewellery and tiaras, or even shoes that one team would have chosen from these, as they are tradiotionally women's territory.

haah - sorry, I didn't mean anything by it, but it is quite unusual

I suppose the cake just wasn't a biggie for me, I don't even like the stuff

were there only 2 choices for the accompanying product?

The cakes were a bad idea!!!

I would have chosen the size 16 dresses or BHS

There were 2 cake shops and the accesories that we saw - but surely they should have been given other options?

I went to a society wedding last summer in a big country house where absolutely no expense was spared and the brides dress cost several thousand pounds. The cake was very classic and absolutely stunning, so much so that I mentioned to the mother of the bride how lovely it was. She told me it was from Marks and Spencer's and although they had looked at lots costing ten or twenty times more than the M&S one, that was the one they all liked best.

I would have chosen the 16+ dresses and hoped for a wedding invitation option.

Do we know that there were only two choices of accessories or did we just see the ones that the teams considered?

Given a free hand, I'd have gone for hats. Brides-to-be will be in the market for things for their bridesmaids and everyone with the bride-to-be at the exhibition - mums, relatives, friends - will be going to the wedding and will need one. It's a solo decision too so no need to consult the absent men.

From what we saw, and my experience in the wedding industry I would have gone for the BHS dresses and the lingerie. I have seen even the classiest of newlywed brides in the very popular diamanté swimwear (hey, it's kitsch!) and as for dresses, as much as they all want the designer/besoke dresses, at the end of the day they will go for what they can get a good deal on and is (usually) flattering on them. And with current fashions, it's usually white/cream/ivory and strapless.

I think the Ian Stuart dresses were there as temptation, and a gamble (which ultimately paid off), but once one team had them, the other team needed to sell, sell, sell to match them. Really they weren't on an even footing, but each of the dress choices had disadvantages - too expensive, too niche, not enough sizes, too cheap. Out of those the safest to go for would be the expensive ones, because one of those and you've got a profit, but one should never underestimate the power of 'cheap and cheerful' if marketed correctly (which is how my partner has managed to get around 8 times as much wedding business (and thus income) when compared to other suppliers of the same product per annum).

I think it would have been fairer, and a more even keel, if it had been most profit rather than most revenue.