I like Vera Bradley stuff, but my daughter, Jill, is absolutely crazy about it. After the sale in Atlanta she started following the Vera Bradley website to see when the next outlet sale was coming to the Atlanta area. Only then did we find out that the spring outlet sale is always in Fort Wayne, Indiana (their home location) and the fall outlet sale travels all over the country. Not being able to tell where the fall sales were going to be, we decided that we would make the trip to the spring sale this year. We were going to drive, but luckily Delta put some tickets on sale at a decent price that made flying irresistible! So, we flew in to Indianapolis, Indiana and rented a car for the 2 hour drive to Fort Wayne. We ran into several ladies at the hotel that come to the Vera Bradley sale every year. They were telling us that in years past they have gotten to the sale right when the doors opened and had never had to wait in line to get in.
Well, all I can say is that I'm glad we didn't listen to those ladies. When Jill and I got up at 5:30 AM, the news stations were already covering the line that was forming outside the Fort Wayne Coliseum where the sale was being held. People had slept in their cars in the parking lot all night! We had already planned to leave the hotel at 6:30 AM which would put us at the coliseum right around 7:00 AM. We got there about 6:50 AM and there were already about 1,000 women (there may have been a couple of men) in line. By the time 8:00 rolled around, there were about 3,000 more women behind us! We stood outside in 44 degree weather until the doors opened at 8:00. After the doors opened, it took us 20 minutes to reach the entrance.
The sale is very well organized. On the first day, the selection is the greatest and the prices are the highest. As each day of the sale goes on, the selection, as well as the prices decrease. While we were in line we were given a map of the layout of the sale. All the rows were numbered and different colored balloons were above the tables. So, you could look for the item you wanted on the map and know exactly where to go once you got inside. As you walked into the sale, you were given a pink garbage back to put your stuff in. We had listened to some of the ladies in the line saying that they just grab stuff, put it in their bag, then sort through it later.
So, Jill and I did just that. Jill had a long list of requests from her friends. I only had a few. Shortly after we got into the sale area, we separated so we could make sure we found as many of the things we were looking for as possible. After all, were were on a time schedule - we had an afternoon plane to catch and a 2 hour drive to the airport. When our bags were so full we couldn't even drag them behind us, we decided it was time to go to the sorting area and go through our loot.
We picked out the things we really wanted to keep and put back the things we decided we weren't crazy about. Then we hit the floor again, filling our pink bags back up! After sorting two more times and checking our lists of requests from our friends, I think we were finally satisfied with all of our stuff.
We headed out of that room to the checkout room where we encountered another long line. There must have been 50 checkout registers with 3 ladies working at each one. The first lady organized all of our like items together and made sure the price tags were showing. The next lady rang up our purchases and the last lady bagged everything. It made getting through the checkout line very quick. They even had a mini post office set up so you could ship your purchases home!
When we left the building we were shocked by what we saw. The line that we had stood in and thought was long was now snaked through the parking lot all the way out to the street. The estimated wait time to just get inside the door was 4 hours! A lot of the ladies in line came to our car to look at what we had bought and wanted to know how much was left inside. We told them they didn't have anything to worry about because the tables were being restocked as fast as they were emptied. There were at least 15 tractor trailer trucks full of merchandise in the parking lot, too. I don't think they were going to run out!
We stuffed all of Jill's purchases into our two basically empty suitcases. There was no more room so I had my stuff mailed home. We made it to the airport and safely back home. It was a whirlwind trip but it was so much fun and nothing can replace the experience and the memories! We are planning to do it again next year but will probably plan to stay a couple of days next time.
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