READY, SET, SHOP! Black Friday gets an early start (PHOTOS)

Bargain hunters braced for crowds and bundled up for the cold on Black Friday, starting the biggest shopping day of the year at midnight.

For photos taken at Silver Sands Factory Outlet and Best Buy, click here.

The first shoppers to take advantage of those post-Thanksgiving sales lined up outside of stores in Silver Sands Factory Outlets as early as 10 p.m. Designer purses were a popular item, as the longest lines in the shopping center were in front of the Coach store, Cole Haan and Dooney and Bourke.

“We came earlier and staked the place out,” said Julia Wilson of Quincy, Fla., who was at the front of the Coach line. “We know exactly what we want and where it is.”

And many shoppers were similiarly prepared, carrying around ads with the items they wanted circled in red and claiming their spots in line early. Matt Boddie of Santa Rosa Beach was one of the more enthusiastic shoppers out to claim a good deal. He got in line at Best Buy in Destin 17 hours before the store opened at 5 a.m. on Friday.

“I’m saving $400 on a TV, it’s worth it,” Boddie said. “And I still got three Thanksgiving dinners. Some random guy brought us leftovers and a couple of friends brought me food.”

Most of the shoppers in the Best Buy line, which stretched back to PetSmart, echoed the same sentiments as they huddled under their blankets and in their sleeping bags. Laptops priced at $200 and home theatre systems at an “amazing price” made the biting cold bearable.

And surprisingly, the shoppers waiting in long lines around Destin weren’t bored for the most part. Some brought books, but most got to know their fellow shoppers. Every shopper the Log interviewed had made at least a couple of friends in their line.

Brian Michie of Destin, who befriended two others in the Best Buy line, said “We’ve bonded over a shared experience.”

For photos from Target in Destin, Kohls in Fort Walton Beach and Silver Sands Factory Outlets, click here.