The couples entering the Drury Lane Oakbrook for the recent 1995 Bridal Show/Expo may not have expected to be asked if they had learned the fox trot. But when they approached a booth offering how-to dance instruction videos, that’s exactly what happened.
They may not have anticipated that a display of futons would turn out to be such a good resting spot. But as they sat, they were serenaded by a four-piece orchestra just two feet away.
Down another aisle, a hairdresser swept up a model’s mane into a French twist. The booth sat among china displays, photographers and travel agents.
The wide range of vendors at the Bridal Show/Expo truly demonstrated just how many products and services can be involved in planning a wedding. And that’s where the Bridal Signature Group in Carpentersville, sponsor of the Oakbrook Terrace show, comes in.
“Future brides and grooms would never believe the type of services that are on display until they actually attend Bridal Expo,” said David Gaffke, president of the Bridal Signature Group. “Fashion, travel, service and more. It’s all at the expo.”
At the recent show, about 1,100 people were treated to displays of fine china, two swans carved out of ice sitting on a bed of red roses and a dark-haired woman walking across a runway modeling a beaded wedding gown.
“With such busy schedules, it’s easier to come here because everything is here,” said bride-to-be Stacey Ford, 25, of Naperville. “We’re looking for a little of everything.”
The Bridal Signature Group is the Chicago area’s largest wedding exposition company, and one of the best, according to Ben Bilbrough, vice president of sales and marketing for Opus Publishing Co., an Elmsford, N.Y., company that puts out several bridal magazines a year.
“We do nine magazines across the country in the top 10 bridal markets, so we see literally hundreds of shows a year,” said Bilbrough. “Dave’s shows are an extreme minority of the ones that are done well-from how the show is orchestrated to how it’s promoted. They’re head and shoulders above the rest.”
Last year, the Carpentersville-based company, which also has offices in Chicago and Atlanta, produced 12 shows in the Chicago area, assisting more than 10,000 prospective brides, said Gaffke. And its business is growing.
“We’ve doubled (attendance) over last year,” he said. “Plus we had 181 clients back in 1983 and now we’re just over 300.”
This year, the Bridal Signature Group plans to produce 17 shows at places such as the Arlington Park Hilton in Arlington Heights, Georgios in Orland Park, the Drake Hotel in Chicago and Medieval Times in Schaumburg.
For each show, the Bridal Signature Group is responsible for everything from securing a location to highlighting the latest in wedding formal wear and entertainment.
“What we do is offer the future bride the amenities that the wedding industry offers, such as limousine services, travel companies, pastry and catering services, other hotel and banquet facilities,” Gaffke said. “We offer the bride a large venue of wedding products and services; it cuts down on the running around. We bring the bride to the client and the client to the bride.”
It all began a few years ago when Gaffke turned a small advertising company called Liberty Media, which promoted workbooks for future brides, into a company that taps all facets of the multimillion-dollar wedding industry.
“We changed the workbook to a program for brides-to-be so they could see up close the products and services,” said Gaffke, 31, of Schaumburg.
There’s no doubt that the wedding business is definitely a good one to be in, considering that more than 55,000 couples tied the knot in 1994 in Illinois. “Eleven percent of those couples come from the northwest suburbs,” said Gaffke. “It’s astronomical.”
The company has grown from two sales representatives to a staff of eight full-time employees who work in the Carpentersville office and 36 part-time workers who set up at the shows. In the 2,000-square-foot Carpentersville office, employees staff the phones to secure clients for future shows. At each show, a team of 10 or more employees works under the direction of Gaffke.
There were nearly 80 exhibitors at the recent Drury Lane show, each one trying to sell brides at least one service or product for their special event.
“Everyone is so frustrated with decision making,” said bride-to-be Sharyn Khoen, 24, of Bedford Park. “This is a chance to get out and have a good time. I’m getting general ideas for my wedding next year.”
“You’re paying a lot of money for something so you want to see it first,” said Ford of Naperville, who plans to marry in December.
“You can’t just do this all over the phone,” added Ford’s fiance, Darren Pryor, 29, of Oswego.
And it was not just music, flowers, formal wear and honeymoon packages. The expo also offered some products and services that a bride and her groom may not have even thought of.
“Original Wedding Songs (in Arlington Heights) is probably one of the most creative companies I’ve seen in a while,” said Gaffke. “The songwriter interviews the bride and groom and then creates their first song for them. He takes how they met, their names, interests and hobbies and produces a song geared to that couple. It brings a tear to your eye.”
Among the vendors were Peppers Waterbeds, Coldwell Banker and Godiva Chocolates. It’s all part of Bridal Signature Group’s effort to be one-stop shopping for the bride-to-be.
Gaffke said he develops a theme for each show, depending on the season (the busiest months for wedding shows are January, February, June, July and August). His marketing strategy even takes into account when most grooms-to-be pop the question.
“We put up our advertising in November to let them know what shows will take place in January,” said Gaffke. After all, he said, Christmas and Valentine’s Day “are the two most popular times for proposals.”
The vendors pay $290 to $800 for booths. What they get for their money is rental space and an all-out advertising blitz, according to Gaffke.
“We were the first company that brought bridal shows into the radio broadcast media field,” said Gaffke. “We’re the first organization that has ever done billboard advertising on a regular basis. We place full-page ads in the Chicago Wedding magazine, which is sold at all the newsstands.”
Gaffke said the firm spent more than $870,000 in advertising last year. But it also sold more than 55,000 tickets to future brides, grooms, friends and family members.
“They always produce large quantities of brides-to-be,” said vendor John Kerfman, owner of Classic Rollz Limousines Ltd. in Chicago. “Dave puts on the best shows in town.”
Even representatives of large department stores said they can benefit from booths at Gaffke’s shows.
“I’m astonished at the amount of people here,” said Evelyn Norcross, bridal consultant for Carson Pirie Scott’s Aurora and Bloomingdale stores, at the Drury Lane show.
Representatives from Carson’s come to the expos to promote the department store’s wedding gift registry, Norcross said.
When the Drury Lane bridal show/expo was about to begin, that’s when the company’s work really got under way.
Dressed in a black and gold tuxedo and wearing a headset to communicate with his staff, the energetic Gaffke was communicating with a security man at the front door, talking to an office manager at the will-call ticket area, finding out if another fashion show was going to be needed, deciding when to start the fashion show and talking to models behind the stage to make sure they were in place and that the sound and lighting were functioning properly.
He also walked the floor to see that brides were finding the services they wanted and talked to vendors to see that they had what they needed.
“We need to make sure that they are operating as if they were working from their own store location,” he said.
“Your booth is always set up before you arrive,” said Deborah Muckerheide, account executive for Nadeau’s Ice Sculptures Inc. in Forest Park. “We do a lot of their shows and they are very organized. They take care of their people very well.”
The company also arranges for limousine companies to display their vehicles in the front of the hotel where the show is being held.
“I have two Rolls-Royce limousines here tonight,” said Kerfman.
Gaffke said his biggest challenge is making sure that each bride talks to each vendor. But the company has found a creative way to see that it happens.
Each bride-to-be has a registration card that has small squares for each vendor. After the bride-to-be has the card initialed by every merchant, she can drop the card into a large basket for a honeymoon drawing.
Gaffke, who has a degree in advertising and marketing from Illinois State University, has come up with other marketing tools, including the Bridal Directory, a free booklet with information on wedding products and services in the Chicago area (it is available at the shows and at many formal-wear companies and bridal shops). The company also offers a phone service (708 or 312-4BRIDAL) that helps brides locate its vendors and gives them information on upcoming bridal shows/expos in their area.
“A bride can call our office, give us her zip code and request bakery information, photographer, deejay, and we can pull that all up on screen with information in her area,” said Gaffke.
Gaffke said he is confident that the Bridal Signature Group will expand into other states in the near future. It already has two shows planned for this summer in Atlanta.
With all the talk of weddings, one might wonder if the man who coordinates all of the extravagant expos for so many people will ever tie the knot himself. And, if he does, what in the world can one expect from his ceremony?
“I envision carriages bringing the entire wedding party into the church on cobblestone streets,” said Gaffke. “My wedding is going to be the largest thing that Chicago has ever seen.”It’s a fact
Some wedding statistics from the Bridal Signature Group:
– Number of couples married in the state of Illinois in 1994: More than 55,000
– Most popular month to tie the knot: June
– Cost of an average wedding: $15,000 to $17,000
– Average length of an engagement: One year
– Most popular honeymoon: Cruise
