Posted: 10/09/2011 10:43

Blackcarat has this morning been taking apart all those days of hard work and thought that went into our goodie bags from last week’s Wedding Fayre – you see, they were personalised to the Ramada Hotel and of no use to any other event. Seems such a shame to destroy about 100 metallic black envelopes, but we claimed back about 100 untouched ringsizers (we have plans for those), 60-odd sweets, along with our business cards and postcards. The Blackcarat Wedding Fayre ‘set’ is now all filed and stored away ready for the next similar event.

It was all a bit disappointing really. We provided 140 goodie bags, of which only about 30 were used. It took hours to hand write envelopes, design, print and guillotine discount flyers and stickers, and as for the shopping around and the huge the expense and personal outlay of getting the stall looking right (a pop-up banner, 2 canvas banners, spot lamps, etc.)…. Well, we still hope it will pay off in the long term.

On a positive note, of the 30-odd visitors, we had enquiries for a potential ten ring sales and have emailed out the quotes (although I do still need to get some further information to some people). We also have contact details and wedding dates for about 20 brides to be and can now do some direct mailings.

It was good to chat to our brides and grooms and hear what they had to say and understand their dreams and wishes. It was a great bit of market research – we now know what designs to add to the website and what rings are in demand. We had two separate enquiries for personalised fingerprinting being etched onto or into a wedding ring – we’re still looking in to this and quite fancy pursuing this further. We were also asked if we could do Mokume Gane – a blending of different metals to form a completely unique wood-like pattern – again, we’re looking into whether it’s another line to follow and if it’s in demand. It was also an interesting exercise in networking – chatting to other similar stallholders and asking about other wedding fayre experiences, plus swapping PR and promotional ideas.

It was fun to do, not too busy, yet constant enough to keep us on our toes and make time fly. We now have to sit back (so to speak, although we never really relax), continue to add more rings to the website and wait on any sales – could take months to see if this form of advertising works… We’ll keep you posted.