They say, “what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas…” except in the instance of Wedding MBA! As an attendee, you’ll want to retain and take home as much information as possible from this special annual event.  So what is the Wedding MBA? It is an annual conference dedicated to educating wedding vendors on how to grow their businesses, taking place at the Las Vegas Convention Center. The Wedding Blue Book spoke with a few of our favorite Arkansas wedding vendors who attended the most recent conference. We wanted to get their take on how to conquer this educational experience as it is packed into three days.

The Wedding MBA might be the perfect place for your wedding business to get booming.  With over 150 educational seminars, over 200 exhibitors, and wedding professionals from all around the world, it is the place to be!

Advice from Vendors Who Attended the Wedding MBA

Leah Seale with Vibrant Occasions Catering gives her tips:

“Be willing to share your notes. We all learn and interpret things differently, so having additional notes from a different perspective has been helpful when implementing things we’ve learned!” 

Keep in mind that others have hidden knowledge and wisdom to share as well. It’s also great to have another perspective, as Leah said, that can help you adjust the way you do your thing.

Brittany Bloom Events + Design’s very own Brittany Paden was able to attend, as well. Here’s what Brittany said:

“Don’t be afraid to make new friends – the majority of the people you meet are not going to be in your market and are not your competition.  Learn from the people that are in your sessions, go out and chat, and don’t be afraid to mingle!” 

You heard it from Brittany – be ready to get your mingle on and bust out those icebreakers! It’ll be so worth it to gain some fresh tips from those in the same industry as you.

We were also able to speak with Mary Krikorian with Vibrant Occasions Catering. Mary found the conference very informative and this is what she had to say:

“The speakers give so many things we need to think about that it can be overwhelming when you are trying to figure out how to implement everything.  The simple answer is you can’t implement everything all at once.  Pick one thing you want to make better and work on it and then move to the next thing.  For us, it was improving our website because there were very tangible things we could do immediately to make it more Google-friendly and searchable.  We ran a scan of our website (here’s a free tool ahrefs.com) that you can use and when it returned a report pointing out the problems we have, we just started fixing them one by one.” 

Have a game plan before trying to attend as many exhibits as you can. Rally your vendor friends and try to divide and conquer as many speakers as possible. Then come together in the evening to discuss what each of you learned from different seminars throughout the day.

Grabbing your planner, keys and right mindset before walking out the door to the largest wedding professional conference can be nerve-wracking.  We’ve gone the extra mile for you in preparing a list of tips and tricks from our aforementioned Arkansas vendor attendees that can help you excel the most while at the Wedding MBA.

Continued Tips from the Wedding Pros:

One: The speakers at the Wedding MBA are amazing but can have a lot of information that can feel overwhelming. Be sure to bring a pen and paper, phone or laptop so you can take notes. Take the 3 most important things that resonate with you that you can take action on. Prioritizing the things that can help most will make goals easier to achieve while still making a huge impact.

Two: Be open to meeting others! Getting to know others that are in the same business as you can be a huge tool in learning how to elevate your business. Sparking a conversation with a hard-hitting question such as their biggest challenges or their biggest successes can lead you to look at things from a different perspective. Keeping an open mind about how others learn from their own actions can be a good aid. Not everyone you meet will be in the same market as you, so don’t think of it as competition.

Three: Share your notes with others and ask if they want to share them with you. Other vendors may have taken down different important things from a speaker than you did. Looking at things from a different angle can ensure you have the best knowledge for being able to be ready to take on oncoming obstacles.

Four: Bring some help with you. With the large variety of speakers and exhibitors, you might not make it to some workshops at the conference. With less than 3 days to take in all the information you can, it can be handy to have some help with gathering that information throughout those days.

Five: Take advantage of resources. Throughout the conference, there will be QR codes from speakers that can give you a plethora of tools. Templates, information, and even contacts will be given to you, so be sure to be on the lookout for those.

Six: Meet the speakers afterward. After a speaker is done, you may have the chance to catch them and ask them questions. Be sure you are taking the lead and not being afraid to ask questions to gain more understanding on a certain topic.

Wedding MBA is the perfect place and experience for new or knowledgeable wedding professionals.

We all want to continue learning and growing our businesses in the best ways to serve our clients. This conference can give you new perspectives that you can take, leave or adjust to fit your own needs.