Things I've learned from bridal shows

I have now attended enough bridal shows to meet practically every vendor in the area. Never let it be said a reporter doesn't do research.

What have I learned?

• There are two varieties of reception halls. First: lovely and elegant halls with in-house catering and open bar that begins at $17-25 per person and goes up from there (with additional 20 percent service charge, 8 percent tax and let's not even begin to talk about the booze). Then: your average social-organization meeting hall, which will let you use whatever caterer you want or bring in nothing but cake and punch... but has all the beauty and aesthetic atmosphere of your average school cafeteria.

If anyone in this area had a big room that was actually pretty, set up tables and chairs and let you use your own frigging caterer or no caterer at all, they'd clean up. I mean, the line would be out the door. Hey, my retirement plan!

• Photo booths at wedding receptions are a thing. I really can't wrap my mind around this. A wedding is, by its very nature, the most-photographed five hours of your life. Everyone's got a camera, and there's at least one person running around who is actually paid to capture important moments on what we no longer call film. Hell, there's an app that lets your guests all upload photos together to share.

So why do you want to pay $800 (no, I'm not making that up) to stick an ugly box in your reception hall that belongs at the local mall food court? Are people really that excited to get a not-passport photo the size of a postage stamp to commemorate your happy event? I have never seen this at a wedding in my life, but they're all over the shows.

• Worst transportation option: A bright pink Hummer-style limousine. I mean this thing was Hello Kitty pink, if Hello Kitty went to Vegas. I thought Katie was going to strangle me when I made her look inside.

Coolest transportation option: a converted trolley, with plenty of limo-style seating up front and benches in the back, lovely and old-fashioned. Unfortunately it cost more than twice what the small buses do.

Of course, those have a healthy dose of Vegas too: flashing neon lights and black-plush bars inside, with poles that I will assume are to help people keep their balance while the bus is in motion and not for use by strippers.

• Most overpriced reception venue: Sadly, the Peabody Opera House. Sure, it's one of the most staggeringly beautiful buildings in the city, and you can get your wedding portrait taken on the grand stage - who wouldn't want that? Your first clue should be the required minimum $3,000 deposit. I wish I could tell you what the total cost would be, but once I calculated it out I had myself a sad little chuckle and tossed it into the OMGNOWAY pile.

Runner-up: The Union Station Marriott. Granted, lovely place. But $85-106 per person is just the start. There's an additional room rental charge for the Grand Hall. There's a 24 percent service charge - I guess the waiters don't get a cut of that $106. That puts just the basic hall at a cost higher than my last car, at a total of more than $13,000 to feed 125 people. They throw in a honeymoon suite for the bride and groom for free... but be prepared to cough up $25 a head if anyone wants breakfast.

• Coolest reception venue: the riverboats. Jazz combo playing on the decks, full-service meal and you float up and down the Mississippi to celebrate your union. Alas, far too expensive.

• Most disappointing venue: A reception hall that, from its pictures, was not too ugly AND let you use your own caterer! I drove madly to its location, sure we had found our spot... it's a bowling alley. With the "reception hall" in the basement. You get to listen to the bowling balls rolling over your head while you dance. Oh well, back to the drawing board...

• Most ludicrous fee: One reception hall charges one dollar per napkin if you want a color other than white. Never mind that they have boxfuls in the back room and it takes absolutely no more effort to bring out blue or maroon napkins than white. A buck a napkin.

Which means it's somebody's job to sit there and count the napkins. Probably wondering where he went wrong in life that this is now his vocation.

• Chintziest trend: Fake wedding cakes. They have beautifully designed and decorated fake cakes, made of styrofoam or something inside the fake frosting. Looks perfectly real! But it's not. They rent you the fake cake, everyone sees it and goes "ooh, ahh." They hide two slices behind it for the "cake-cutting," so you get the "full experience."

Then there's a couple of sheet cakes back in the kitchen, and that's what gets served to your guests. They are blissfully unaware that you "cut" into a fake block of decorated styrofoam because you were too cheap to buy a real wedding cake.

JIMMY: That might be something to -
ME: I thought it was the cheapest, chintziest thing I've ever seen!
JIMMY: Oh. Right.

Look, I'm all for saving money. We will rent tuxedoes and buy a used gown and skip the open bar and if my DJ friend isn't available we'll dance to an iPod. But let's avoid fake food, okay? What's next: wax apples and painted-wood cheese blocks on the buffet? "You thought we were feeding you, but it was all a joke! Ha ha!"

• Best sample food: The dark chocolate cheesecake from The Regency. Ohmigod. Yum. Runner-up: The Gateway Center's mini-buffet and Bellemeade Manor's chocolate mousse.

• Most inscrutable vendors: Florists. Not one florist I saw at any show had a price list or would quote me actual costs on their flowers. Now, it's nice to tailor the flowers to a bride's style, and blah blah blah hand-tied vs. whatever they do to hold the thing together that isn't tying, roses good gardenias bad, etc. I could find out more solid information from 1-800-FLOWERS than I did from any florist. Sure, they showed me beautiful pictures, but could one of them say, "You've got five attendants each, two fathers and four mothers and grandmothers? Hmmm, I can do that for $325 base price, here's a list of extras and their costs."

Is that number sane? How would I freaking know?

• Cheesy thing that was actually kind of cool: One reception venue will mix a special drink just for your wedding - the ElizaJimmy, or whatever. They will design it to your taste and even make sure the color matches the bridesmaids. At the first show I thought this was the silliest thing I ever heard of, but I must have had some kind of spell cast on me at these shows, because now it sounds nifty. I think I need a vacation.

• A note to a certain institution about which I was briefly quite excited: If you have a lovely reception hall in a historic location, and you want to book weddings... buy some tables and chairs. Seriously. Because the price is right and your place is lovely. But you don't have tables and chairs. So we would have to rent them, which starts at, say, $7.50 for a round table that seats six. Then it's a buck a chair - for the cheap folding chairs. Then tablecloths - that's another $11 per table.

For a wedding of 125 people, that's more than $500 and we haven't rented china, glassware, a big table for the front of the room, or those blessed napkins. Plus you have to pay for delivery and setup. And you want them cleared out by midnight, which means the wedding party gets to wave goodbye to the guests... and start taking down the tables and chairs. How fun!

• An open letter to bridal shops: The average woman in the U.S. wears a size 14 and weighs 162 pounds. Granted, brides are often younger women who have not yet borne a child, and thus skew smaller. However, if I ask you how many plus-size gowns you carry and the answer is "one," I'm not going to bother driving to your shop. It's a waste of gas.

Also, if I tell you my wedding isn't until 2014, pushing me to make an appointment this weekend is just silly. If I have to tell you six times in our brief conversation that I'm not looking for a dress until next summer and you keep pushing me to make an appointment, I'm crossing you off my list.

• Best freebie at any bridal show: A little stress ball shaped like a tuxedo-clad groom. My new favorite toy.

• Finally.... ice sculptures are still silly.