Abilene Total Bridal Show

It’s a tough economic period. Yet, the show was full of brides and mothers and best friends all trying to figure out how to do one of the more complicated tasks of today’s society – Plan a Wedding – and do it well. The show was in the North hall of the Civic Center and while crowded with both visitors and vendors had the space to make everybody comfortable and able to actually talk to the vendors rather than just going booth to booth and loading up on flyers and brochures.{{more}}“Fun and exciting” was the way one bride to be put it. The show had everything from cakes to linens, photographers to planners and tuxes to absolutely glorious wedding gowns and the longest Limo I’ve ever seen to include my trip to Las Vegas where it seemed every other vehicle was a stretch limo. The wedding DJ furnished music for background and for the special events that took placeDenise Loehman of McKay’s Bakery with most fabulous chocolate cake I’ve seen. Photo by Joe Starkey during the show. I was pleased because you could hear the music throughout the hall and still talk without having to be loud. The show drew vendors and brides from a large part of the Big Country. Photographers came from Brownwood and Cross Plains and one bridal group had an Abilene Bride, sister from Roby and bridesmaid from Rotan. Friendships in the Big Country cover a lot of territory. Element Motif Photography was showing weddings done in Santa Fe, NM but grew up in Abilene and has returned here to live and work. Tilt Shift Studios was letting people dress up in their props and photographing them. The photographs are now up on their facebook page and they are providing free photos to each person who “likes” them on facebook.Creative Cakes and McKay’s Bakery were providing pastry both beautiful to the eye and delightful to the taste. Creative Cakes furnished the show with an absolutely beautiful cake that was destroyed in the time it took me to shoot 4 or 5 frames in the Cake Dive. Big Country Home Page sponsored a contest for the most Fifth frame of the cake dive. That’s somewhere around 1.5 seconds after the start. Photo by Joe Starkeyinteresting proposal and the top five brides-to-be got to search thru the cake for a small ring that represented several hundred dollars worth of prizes. Good, clean, MESSY fun. Each BTB was given a plastic bag to wear that looked like a Tuxedo, told the gathered crowd how their finance went about proposing, were told to put one hand behind their back and on the count of three, went searching.The fashion show was spectacular. Who knew that Abilene had so many beautiful men and cute little bridal attendants and glamorous women to put into gowns and tuxedos/suits? Hopefully we can put most of these images on our website . OK, I was going to say handsome men but first that’s a clique and next it didn’t really tell how good these guys looked on stage so I put in something that hopefully grabbed your attention.The show will be back in either January or February, 2012 andBridal Gown Converts to Party Dress. Photo by Joe Starkeyarea BTBs should make it a point to go. Many of the BTBs told me that they were having to book out a minimum of six months and often over a year to get their choice of photographers, wedding site and caterers.Abilene should thank Al’s Formal Wear and Nell’s Coiffure for sponsoring a great show.To see more photos visit out “Picture Stories Around Abilene” section of the West Texas Tribune online.