Saudi Gazette Wedding is a very special occasion in a girl's life. She dreams about her D-day since young and hopes to have a perfect beautiful wedding. In order to make their dreams come true Al-Harithy Company organized a three-day ‘Wedding Arabia Exhibition' at the Hilton hotel last week. The exhibition with its ostentatious display of all the latest wedding trends attracted nearly 5,000 visitors. Beautiful, latest and exquisite wedding gowns and elegant evening dresses from Saudi, Turkish, and Moroccan fashion designers stupendously displayed on mannequins left the going-to-be-brides and their mothers in awe. A plethora of stalls also displayed floral arrangements, invitation cards, jewel, accessories, cosmetics, beauty products and lingerie. Guests at wedding usually look forward to scrumptious mouth-watering delicacies and to cater to them various caterers had put forward lots of appetizing menus to choose from apart from the lacy, tiered wedding cakes. A caterer quickly and artistically decorated a wedding cake on the spot. “Customers like to choose their own cake from the internet and they show me the picture, and I can make whatever they want. A new trend is to print a beautiful photo of the bride and groom on the cake itself. And amongst the flavors strawberry is the most popular,” said a caterer. To capture all those mesmerizing and memorable moments loads of professional photographers were also available to provide valuable suggestions. The place was a buzz with excited ladies moving from stall to stall admiring the displayed items and gathering information while munching on savory chocolates, dates, pastries, tarts, and drinking Arabic coffee. The ambience was cheerful and enthralling almost like a wedding. Bride-to-be Huda Qattan attended the exhibition with her mother and was extremely elated to be there for she could find everything she needed for the wedding under one roof. “It is a relief that I finally took care of the most important items of my wedding – which is the wedding gown! The wide selection of new and designer wedding gowns were very helpful. Nowadays, gowns are not plain white instead they have shades of other colors which are incorporated well with white, and are adorned with shiny and attractive embellishments. I also scheduled a photographer to take pictures at my wedding,” said Huda while talking to the Saudi Gazette. “I came to get an idea of what is new and trendy. The best thing about the exhibition is that I was able to find almost everything for my daughter. We found bridal gowns, abayas, bedding and linens, and even lacy prayer garments for the bride,” said a bride's happy and excited mother. A local boutique came up with an extremely interesting and economical concept. Brides who are not willing to spend a huge lump sum money for a gown that will only be worn once will definitely adapt well to this idea. The boutique tailors the gown, sells it to the bride, and then guarantees to purchase it from the bride for half its original price, therefore, enabling the bride to get some of her money back. Another boutique with an innovative concept offered to provide a matching thobe for the groom with the brides gown. This was the first boutique that actually acknowledged that a grooms dress, too, is an important part of the wedding! However, some visitors to the exhibition were slightly disappointed because many exhibits entertained wholesalers and local businesses only instead of individuals. Hanada Al-Wafi came to buy herself an evening gown for her sister-in-law's wedding, but she had to leave empty handed. “The evening gowns from the Turkish fashion companies were exquisite, but I could not buy one for myself. I fell in love with a dress, but I was told that they do not sell an individual gown; I had to buy a minimum of three gowns. Nonetheless, it was a pleasant experience in general to get an idea of what is in fashion for evening wear,”she told the Saudi Gazette. Eighty different Saudi and international companies participated in the exhibition. Wedding fashion industry is a booming industry in the Kingdom, hence, countries around the world are flocking to Saudi Arabia to carve a niche for themselves in this growing and handsomely rewarding industry. “Statistics reveal that women in Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries s pend a total of SR4 billion a year on cosmetics and beauty products,” said Waleed Waked, Executive Manager of Al
