The bridal show was very informative. I ended up inviting J's mom to go with me, since I wanted to get her more involved a bit and I needed help with bouquet ideas and other flower ideas. I think she had a great time going through all the booths with me and looking at all the wedding stuff, and we found some really nice sample bouquets at the show that I really liked.

Oddly, one of the bouquets I liked the most was made of purple kale! Not even a flower. I hadn't ever heard of people making bouquets out of vegetables, but the bouquet looked really nice and had the added benefit of being really sturdy. We ended up seeing the bouquet being used in the bridal fashion show (no cowboy fashions this year!), and it looked really pretty. Another bouquet I liked paired white hydrangeas with purple alstromerias, which looked pretty and unique. Also, both hydrangeas and alstromerias are relatively inexpensive (I think), which would be good for my pocketbook. When it comes to flowers, I think my motto right now is cheap is better, as long as it looks good. No carnations-and-baby's-breath bouquets for me.

We also got some good ideas for favors. I had previously decided I didn't want any favors if they were just something to have, because most favors are useless anyway and guests leave them at the venue by the bucketload. We saw this guy with tiny jars of jam, though. I really liked this idea because we could just buy a bunch of tiny jars in bulk, and make our own jam from berries picked over the summer! I liked this idea because it was more personal and would let us give our guests something that was quintessentially Oregon. I think we might do either Marionberry (depending on the marionberry season) or Oregon strawberry for the jam, or both. That might be fun.

As far as I know, I didn't win anything, but oh well. The show was productive and that was all I was looking for. Hopefully some of these new ideas help me out later!