Brides-to-be, eventual husbands, families and others filed into the Lane Events Center for the 2004 Emerald City Bridal Show on Saturday and Sunday.
Students Jennifer Cooper, 21, and Rodney Clark, 22, spent much of their Sunday touring the more than 100 booths of local wedding-related businesses.
“It’s kind of overwhelming,” Cooper said. “I want everything to be perfect and exactly how I imagine it in my head, but I didn’t even know how many options were out there. It feels like we’re back to the drawing board.”
The two were engaged over the holidays and are planning an August wedding with about 300 guests in Portland. That may seem far off, but as anyone who has participated in the coordination of matrimonial affairs knows, the clock is ticking.

“This (show) is a unique opportunity for future brides and grooms to finalize their wedding plans or just to get some good ideas all under one roof,” show producer Seth Reese said.
Reese’s company, Oregon Wedding Shows, sponsors similar bridal events throughout Oregon. Each event takes about one year to organize.
“It could take weeks or months to drive to each of these businesses individually, but we offer the same service in one afternoon,” said Reese, who was wearing a sleek black tuxedo at the show.
Walking into the event hall, each of the roughly 700 brides-to-be in attendance over the weekend first entered a portion where string quartets were in direct competition with party disc jockeys and classical guitarists — the first of many impassioned decisions to be made.
Persisting forward, event participants encountered a mountain range of wedding cakes where Jill Dian, owner of Classique Cakes & The Wedding Solution, had a booth. She runs her business entirely out of her home with a small family staff aiding in the tasks involved in maintaining a business.
“I don’t even advertise in the phone book,” Dian said. “This show is pretty much the only publicity that I get aside from word-of-mouth, so I always look forward to these events.”
According to Dian, young couples like their cakes “simple yet elegant.”
David’s Bridal customer service employee Kandayce Day attended the show and said she has seen many brides find their dream dresses.
“When you see her come out of the dressing room and she gets that sparkle in her eye … it is a beautiful moment,” Day said.

A fashion show — the main event of the occasion — occurred four times throughout the weekend. From tiny kiss-blowing flower girls to GQ grooms, the models offered the hopeful brides and grooms in the audience the chance to see possible wedding themes. Exclusively Bridal now offers a University Ducks wedding dress with matching dresses for the bridesmaids.
The bridal show was not merely an event where wedding plans were stapled down and chicken or fish was decided. It became a place to facilitate childlike dreams and hopes, where tablecloth veils of many years ago were transformed into thousand-dollar satin gowns — all under one roof.