We were lucky to catch up with Lisa Moore recently and have shared our conversation below.

Lisa, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. One of the things we most admire about small businesses is their ability to diverge from the corporate/industry standard. Is there something that you or your brand do that differs from the industry standard? We’d love to hear about it as well as any stories you might have that illustrate how or why this difference matters.

This is a resounding yes for us. In fact, our whole business model was created out of a desire to do things outside of the norm in our industry. The Denton Bridal Show began in 2014 when we saw a need for local show at the northern most point of the Golden Triangle in North Texas. There wasn’t another show North of the Lewisville Lake, but the North Central Texas Counties certainly had a bunch of industry vendors that could sustain and benefit from a local bridal show. But aside from meeting a need, we had a strong desire to do things differently from other shows we had attended in the past.

1. Our Bridal Show is a one-day, 5-hour long event. We felt like other shows were too long and ate up a whole weekend. As businesses in the wedding industry, blocking off a whole weekend can be challenging because the majority of our business happens on the weekends. Many small business owners are a one-man show and don’t have help or back-up. We wanted to keep our timeframe short and manageable, while allowing the vendors who participate in our show to still book a Saturday evening or Sunday event that weekend.

2. We allow vendors to set-up on Friday during the day, the day before the event. In addition, we offer staff who are solely there to help the vendors unload and carry in their items from their vehicle. We know how hard it is to set-up for a show and we really want these small business owners to feel valued and cared-for because of how hard they work.

3. We offer free valet for vendors and attendees the day of the show. Parking and walking up to the venue are one less thing that we wanted our attendees and business owners to worry about.

4. Every person who attends our show is automatically entered to win one of our grand raffle prizes at the show! Just an extra fun little perk to make attending the exciting. And calling the winners each show is still one of our favorite things!

5. As a compliment to our in-person bridal show, The Denton Bridal Show, we also launched an Online Bridal Show called Brideologist where couples can meet vendors online, see their pricing and a video tour, and get a dashboard full of wedding planning tools to help make planning their wedding easier. Brideologist is totally free for couples and vendors can create a listing for super low introductory rates with not contract. Just one more way we help couples and vendors connect to make wedding dreams come true.

Overall, we strive to respond to every email, phone call, or inquiry as soon as possible. We want to show everyone who is a part of our show that we care for them as an individual. Hopefully that shows in what we do.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

We ourselves are industry vendors. Lisa has 17 years’ experience as a wedding planner and LeeAnn has 22 years experience as a photographer. We actually met at a bridal show ourselves in March 2006 and started working together at weddings as much as we could from that point on. Being small business owners ourselves, we were passionate about helping other business owners grow their businesses affordably. We also believe in working smarter not harder, so creating a space where vendors and couples can connect in one day makes so much sense for both business owners and couples.

In addition, we are really thankful that we get to work together. We’re honestly pretty proud of the fact that we’ve been able to build 2 businesses, hire several people to help us, and learn to communicate and work together successfully over the last 8 years. After talking to other business owners and entrepreneurs, we’ve realized what a rarity it is to find friends who can work together and not end up hating each other. We are very similar, but there are a lot of ways that we are different, and we both value and respect each other’s differences and unique strengths. One of the biggest things we agree on is that we genuinely want to care for every person that we serve…we always strive to be honest and kind.

What’s been the most effective strategy for growing your clientele?

We’ve seen the most success with face to face, person to person methods of marketing. It’s pretty old school, but phone calls and emails have given us our greatest return on our time and investment. We’ve never been afraid to call business to business and we love connecting with people this way. In addition, sending a personal email has brought us returns in dividends, as well. We know there’s value in social media presence, blogs, and radio, of course, but we’ve had the best experience with a good old-fashioned phone call or email.

Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?

During our January 2019 Denton Bridal Show we conducted some market research and asked attendees what they were looking for in today’s culture to help their relationship and to make wedding planning less stressful and more fun. We were shocked by the results! Literally everyone responded by saying that they wish that there was a way to meet vendors and see their pricing without having to come to a bridal show or reach out to a ton of businesses individually. So they basically wanted everything a bridal show has to offer…except online!

We gave this a lot of thought and spoke with other industry leaders regarding this new idea. We wanted to know what was lacking in the wedding market industry. We attended conferences and researched trends regarding marketing to millennials. The number one priority for today’s couples when planning their wedding is price. They want easy access to information, pricing and availability. We know there are ways of finding local vendors online, but clearly something is missing if couples still feel like they can’t plan their wedding online. They need more than just a “yellow pages”. Today’s couples don’t want to drive all over town and have face to face meetings just to get pricing. But, most vendors want the ability to sell themselves in person (which we understand), while also staying relevant with current trends. We needed to find a way to meet the needs of both the wedding vendor and today’s engaged couple.

And this is how the Online Bridal Show started.

Couples are online, and they want to meet business owners in the industry and see what makes them unique, while also making sure it all fits in their budget. So we created Brideologist.com, a site where a business owner, can purchase a listing for a reasonable price, tell couples about what they offer, post their pricing, and upload a video tour of their services. The video tour is a unique feature that will allow couples to see who they are, what they offer, and what sets them apart from their competition. Vendors in our industry know better than anyone that couples are sending emails and planning their wedding late at night after they get done with work. Brideologist, The Online Bridal Show, puts their pricing and information right in front of couples while they are in planning mode and allows them to meet them while they are sleeping.

Change is hard – we get that. But we really believe that giving couples the information they want in a digital culture us a must! They may even want to book over the phone. This means less “no shows” for businesses and a higher booking percentage. It also means that couples can continue to “meet” vendors and plan their wedding even in the midst of an unexpected disaster, like the COVID-19 Pandemic. We are more convinced than ever, after experiencing this sudden crisis, that it is essential for couples and business owners to be able to meet and book online and over the phone, without the requirement to meet face to face. We still have the in-person Bridal Show each year, but the Online Bridal Show is another way to help businesses and couples connect.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.dentonbridalshow.com
• Instagram: www.instagram.com/dentonbridalshow
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/dentonbridalshow

Image Credits
We own the rights to all photos. No credit needed.