As the organizing team prepares to roll out the Roraima Group of Companies’ three-day ninth Annual Wedding Expo later today, the company believes it can look back at the short history of the event with a considerable degree of satisfaction.
A few years ago, Roraima’s Chief Executive Officer Gerry Gouveia had told Stabroek Business that part of the focus behind the company’s launch of Wedding Expo was to draw attention to what it believes is Guyana’s potential as a destination for wedding tourism. But Gouveia said there has been official sloth in amending legislation governing the lead time between couples’ arriving here and their acquisition of credentials to tie nuptials in the jurisdiction. This has meant that the company can only continue to lobby government for a change in the law. Meanwhile, the company said, the Wedding Expo has had its accomplishments.
According to Roraima Marketing Manager Dellon Murray when the expo opens this evening at least 40 service providers will be promoting their goods at the event for the first time. Murray said the appearance of new vendors and the testimonies of those vendors whose businesses have benefited from participation in the event, reflect its growing popularity.
Roraima’s Sales and Events Manager Nicole Moore told Stabroek Business that several long-standing exhibitors whose participation in the Wedding Expo began with a small table displays have now graduated to multi-product booths. The marketing possibilities offered by Wedding Expo are a tribute to the success which Roraima has realized in what, hitherto, was a relatively unknown avenue of enterprise. In a relatively short time the event has cornered its own end of the market among couples contemplating marriage, prospective brides in search of novelty weddings and mostly young people keen to ‘soak up’ what it has to offer.
What comes to mind immediately is the open admission by vendors who have participated in the event over the years that their businesses have grown on account of their presence at the Wedding Expo. The event affords a marketing
platform for a bewildering array of service providers including creative entrepreneurs offering customized wedding invitations and tokens, seamstresses, transportation companies, reception hall proprietors and beverage companies, among others. Gouveia has told Stabroek Business that he believes that the significance of the Wedding Expo reposes in “the signal that it sends to the country as a whole regarding our potential as a wedding destination. As much as any other Caribbean territory Guyana has that potential.”
Gouveia added, as he has done in previous years, that official sloth in amending legislation on the acquisition of credentials for visitors seeking to tie nuptials here continues to strangle the growth of a potentially lucrative niche in the tourism sector.
This year’s Wedding Expo will be opened by Social Protection Minister Amna Ally but the fashion displays and live entertainment will almost certainly top the formalities. The blue ribbon event of the weekend is likely to be the real wedding, between Akeem Peter and Kerron Boston, winners of the highly competitive ‘Race to the Altar’. After a marriage ceremony that will be seen by more witnesses than they would have bargained for, the couple and their 50 guests will withdraw to a private reception, leaving the rest of the Wedding Expo to continue. Incidentally, as part of their prize for besting the other competitors in the ‘Race to the Altar’, the couple will be afforded a honeymoon in Cuba. All told, Roraima will be providing the couple with a wedding gift worth around $3 million.
The revelry aside, the organizers of the Wedding Expo never fail to emphasize the importance of the business opportunity which the event affords. Gouveia said that while the Wedding Expo seeks to afford “some lucky couple” a memorable wedding, the event also affords Roraima the opportunity to provide emerging businesses with marketing opportunities at little or no cost.
Perhaps equally significant is the extent of the branding that the event has afforded for the company itself. Roraima’s CEO has repeatedly said that it is difficult to place a monetary value on the goodwill that derives from staging the event. A point has been reached, he said, where the Wedding Expo has secured the “automatic support” of high profile business houses like Kings Jewelry World which provides the rings for the lucky couple and John Lewis Styles, the contributor of the groom’s suit. Other notable contributors include the Beharry Group of Companies, the Guyana Telephone & Telegraph Company, AH&L Kissoon and Gizmos & Gadgets.
This year the Ministry of Social Protection will be participating in the Wedding Expo, taking its anti-domestic violence message to a receptive audience.
