PRESS RELEASE (Scroll down for Images)

Grand DulhanExpo 2008: Raises the Bar for South Asian Bridal Shows Worldwide

December 7,2008 Somerset, NJ:

DulhanExpo recreated it's magic one more time with it's Annual Grand International Version at the Garden State Exhibit & Convention Center, Somerset, New Jersey on December 7, 2008. 7000 plus fans, brides and grooms-to-be, vendors and media moguls attended past Sunday's Gala. Presented by Zee Television Network, and organized by Sumit & Shikha Arya of Dulhan Inc., this event broke many records and raised the bar for such events worldwide.

This year's Grand DulhanExpo was action packed with entertainment and practical wedding planning information. It showcased a great line-up of brand name wedding industry service providers, performing artists and fashion designers. The exhibition helped the engaged couples plan their upcoming weddings with great ease and loaded their Goody Bags with huge amounts of contacts and wedding planning tools that will help them plan their affairs to utmost perfection. Approximately half the crowd was made-up of general public, who wasn't necessarily planning a wedding or an event in the near future, but attended the event for its shear entertainment value & wholesale priced shopping opportunities.

Most of the brides and grooms do not want to delegate the various tasks that go with planning their weddings to wedding planners or their family members. Today's couples want to be completely involved with every aspect of planning and organizing their own weddings. At the same time they want to be able to keep the dollar and time consumption to the reasonable level. DulhanExpo helps them meet all those goals and makes them totally self-sufficient.

"With bridal expos, months' worth of research is condensed into a day," says Sumit Arya, the CEO and the visionary behind DulhanExpo. "Bridal Expos are worth taking a day off from work, worth flying back from school or job in a different state, worth rescheduling a trip to India or Pakistan or worth sneaking out of a cousin's wedding. DULHAN EXPO is a brand of Bridal Exhibitions designed to help and support the modern South Asian brides & grooms-to-be. DulhanExpo provides Desi Brides in USA with advanced wedding planning tools, saving them months worth of legwork by bringing 200+ Wedding Service Providers from 40+ categories under one roof.”

The Grand DulhanExpo 2008 was held at an 67,000 sq. ft. facility, ‘Garden State Exhibit & Convention Center’, in Somerset, New Jersey. DulhanExpo brags about being an exhibition, a shopping mela, a fashion show and a concert, all-in-one. The main highlights of Grand DulhanExpo 2008 were 225+ Booths providing wedding planning and shopping opportunities. There was a line-up of 12 performing artists and 8 fashion show segments. The visitors started lining up in the lobby half an hour before the start time, there was an over-flow of the crowd and new attendees kept registering until 7:30PM in the evening. Like always the event went over-time and finished at 9:30PM instead of 8:00PM. This year’s Grand DulhanExpo had two other sub-events embedded within itself… India Property Fair & Eid Mela.

Grand DulhanExpo 2008 offered a variety of booths/stalls/ stands with vendor presentations for the brides to evaluate and consider. 150+ participating vendors, occupied 225+ booths, from 35 categories including catering, hotels, banquet halls, wedding planners, photographers, videographers, mandap designers, florists, party rentals, party favors, invitation card printers, make-up artists, hair stylists, mehndi artists, skin-care specialists, live entertainers, disc jockeys, drummers, horse and carriages, fashion designers, j ewelers, bakeries and wedding supplies.

World class entertainment at the Grand DulhanExpo 2008 featured world renowned artist RDB from Toronto. Manjeet and Nindi along with their Dholi performed ‘Rafta Rafta’ from the movie ‘Namaste London’ and the title song from the recent super hit movie ‘Singh is Kinng’. Together they also sang some of their most popular Bhangra Numbers to thousands of frantically screaming fans. Saima Khan of Toronto enthralled the audience with her silky vocals. Rocky Xavier from Washington DC sang his Bangla hit ‘Ki Je Korbo’. The Fitness Guru, Sarina Jain got some of the audience members to come up on the stage and join her in her ‘Masala Bhangra Workout’ routine. Sunil T, the host of Masala Cruise & the champion of The Great Indian Laughter Challenge, was the official Master of Ceremonies of the event and entertained the audience with his wit and humor all day long. Dance & Musical performances by Bollywood Performing Arts, Belly Dancing by the Dance Soul Co., Marching Band by Red Baraat and Vocal Music by Ritesh Rathod and Hina Trivedi formed the rest of the entertainment showcase. The sound for the event was provided by none other than the top deejay of the industry, DJ Sharad. Miss India New York 2008, Bhupinder Kaur and Miss Pakistan Worldwid e 2008, Ayesha Khan also made their appearances.

The International Fashion Designer line-up at the Grand DulhanExpo consisted of Seasons from Mumbai, India; Kyles Collection from London, UK; Khubsoorat Collection by Mani Kohli from London, UK and Rupal Rupesh Patel from Ahmedabad, India. USA’s designers included Alia Khan, Karamjit Bhinder, Khubsoorat Collection by Geetanjali Singh, Gurdiya Couture by Leena Bindra and Charms Couture by Madhu Ahuja. All the fashion shows were choreographed by Karamjit Bhinder and ably assisted by Sonia & Nishi of Bolly Arts Event Management, Zain Shakir, Nabeeha Qadri, Fadia Islam & Farrah Choudhry.

DulhanExpo also provides series of educational wedding planning seminars at the event. This year, the wedding planner, Shetal Vyas of ‘Number 29 Events’ offered a seminar on ‘How to plan a dream wedding’. Adrienne Diaz of ‘The Merion’ educated the visitors on ‘What to look for when choosing a Banquet Hall’. The seminar topic of Amar Deval’s ‘BnB Photography’ was ‘What to look for when hiring a Photographer’. DJ Jayesh Rana of ‘Raaz Entertainment’ spoke=2 0about ‘Event Entertainment’ while ‘Nina Doshi’ gave a seminar on ‘Bridal Beauty’. Dr. Shefali Shah of ‘Inspiration Med Spa’ educated the audiences about ‘Laser Hair Reduction, Botox and Dermal Fillers’. A ‘Bridal Photo Gallery’ spread out in 7 booths was presented by Satish Zalavadia and Mayur Patel of ‘Creative Art Studios’.

DulhanExpo is the only event in the world that provides an unbelievable amount of amenities for free. At Grand DulhanExpo 2008, if free admission and free parking wasn’t enough, the brides were presented with a Rose by Desi Flora and a Goody Bag by Dulhan Inc. as they registered at the door. This event offered complimentary food sampling by Aangan Catering, mithai sampling by Mithaas and Moghul Catering and cake sampling by Chocol8Kiss. Free mehndi applications were offered by Mehendi Styling by Leena & Pritee, Bridal Henna Artist, Nina’s Herbal Salon, Nina Doshi and Red Lotus Beauty. Free Instant photos were taken all day, on the house, courtesy of NYC Photobooth & Pikabooth. Free Makeovers were offered by Thevi Cosmetics. A yesha Khan of Singhar Beauty offered free Skin Analysis to the visitors at her booth. Free Designer Consultations were provided by the world renowned designer Alia Khan. Free magazines and publications were distributed by many participating Media Sponsors. Pingo.com gave away $15,000 worth of phone cards to the DulhanExpo visitors. If all this wasn’t enough, the entry into $25,000+ worth of raffles was free as well.

Two lucky winners won tickets for the Masala Cruise to Bahamas. Rose Events Entertainment gave away Deejay Services worth $5000 for a Reception. Duval Studios raffled off Pre-Wedding Event Videography worth $1000. Some of the other raffles included… $500 worth of uplighting by DJ Raj Entertainment & Event Lighting, Free Belly Dancing performance worth $500 from Dance Soul Co. by Samantha Diaz, $300 worth of Bridal Mehndi by Dipti Desai, Makeup Trial & Facial by Sakhi Beauty, Party Make-up/Hair by Ayesha Khan of Singhar Beauty, Red Carpet Look Gift Set by Thevi Cosmetics, Flower arrangements by all the decorators and much more.

This 25th show in 6 years was managed by Sunita Sadhnani of Bolly Arts Event Management, the official on-site management company of the DulhanExpo. The stage décor was provided by Elegant Affairs, the leaders in the Mandap Decoration business. The lighting providers were Rose Events Entertainment, and the sound was provided by DJ Ashis and DJ Sharad of DJs Unlimited South Asia. The official party rental company, second year in a row, was ‘Select Party Rental’. The official make-up artist/hair stylist for the fashion show was Nina Lamba of Nina’s Herbal Salon and the henna tattoos for the models was created by Leena & Pritee of Mehendi Styling. The official photographer of the event was Freddy Alvarez and the official videographers were Naveed Khan of Sunny Image Studios and Adnan Khwaja of AA Studios. The accommodations for the celebrity guests and international vendors were provided by Comfort Suites Somerset, Holiday Inn Somerset & Dolce Basking Ridge. Sumit’s outfit was designed by Geetanjali Singh of Khubsoorat Collection.

DulhanExpo was founded by Sumit & Shikha Arya in 2003. Today this is the largest South Asian Bridal Show in the USA and the most comprehensive show of its kind in the world. DulhanExpo is organized=2 04 times a year in NY & NJ with 3 hotel scale shows and 1 Annual Grand International Scale Version on the First Sunday of December, every year, at the Garden State Exhibit Center, Somerset, NJ. The next year’s Grand DulhanExpo is scheduled for December 6, 2009. Prior to that their will be Spring DulhanExpos on March 8, 2009 at the Hyatt Long Island, Hauppauge, NY and April 5, 2009 at The Merion, Cinnaminson, NJ. More information can be found on their official website DulhanExpo.com.


TESTIMONIALS:
"Hey Sumit, I wanted to thank you for a great show!"
- Sonal J. Shah (Vendor, Sonal J. Shah Event Consultants, LLC)

"Another fantastic event, Sumit! Our booth was busy most of the day (we even had a door prize of a gift certificate to Moghul which I'll send out to the winner this week."
- Erik Kent (Media Sponsor, NJWedding.com)

"Sumit, Wonderfully put together show yesterday. Your hard work surely showed."
- Iram Zaidi (Casual Visitor)

"Sumitji how are you? Thanks a lot. It was really good day yesterday let's hope we get some business."
- Dipti Desai (Vendor, Bridal Henna Artist)"

"Sumit, Thanks for a great show. RDB had a great time and so did I. Let us know when ever you plan to do you next event. Stardreamz is at your service."
- Usman (Artist Agent, StarDreamz)

"Dear Sumit, This was my first time attending the show and I did a lot of looking around because I'm planning my own wedding quite soon and I was very much impressed by how you put everything together in the venue. You're doing a great thing by bring all vendors and designers together and I'm sure everyone appreciates all that you do."
- Tirusha Dave (Editor-in-Chief, Bravura Artist)

"Five years ago, when I helped plan my sister's wedding there were no resources. Thank God for DulhanExpo for coming to my rescue."
- Rohini Malhotra (A Bride-to-be)

"With the help of DulhanExpo Bridal Show I was able to plan my whole wedding in just a few hours!"
- Sejal Patel (A Newlywed)

"Hi Sumit, I just wanted to let you know that I thought the Dulhan Expo was great. I know some of my friends that were there who actually put down deposits on some of the wedding services, right on the spot."
- Shetal Chatlani (Casual Visitor)

"The expo was great yesterday!! The whole fashion show wardrobe was so nice... over all everything was really helpful and beautifully done. So thanks for the invite and the wonderful event... keep it up ! :) And, oh yeah, I had a question. I was wondering about the makeup on the models. Who were the makeup artists for that?? Because that was really nice too... xoxo"
- Aruba Chaudhry (Casual Visitor)