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Free for NYE: Filming New Year's Eve Weddings in Western Massachusetts

12/20/2019

So, what do people do when they’re not filming a New Year’s Eve wedding? I’ve spent a bunch of New Year’s Eves shooting elegant weddings at indoor venues across Western Massachusetts, but this year neither my wife or I will be working; we need to take advantage of this rare scheduling opportunity and go out!

One of my first, and favorite, New Year’s weddings I ever shot was for two friends, Lindsey and Pete, who got married at the Sheraton at Monarch Place in downtown Springfield, Massachusetts. Back then, the hotel had a multi-tiered, glass platform where the wedding party, the bride and groom stood for the ceremony. This made lighting tricky (isn’t lighting always tricky?), but the production came out beautifully.

There are a lot of wonderful venues in the Pioneer Valley for winter weddings, but when there’s snow, I like to head up to the Berkshires for shoots. Berkshire County’s mountains and rolling fields, thick forests and frozen lakes blanketed in pristine snow are a great environment for a winter wedding.

New Year's Eve is a popular date to get married; if you're planning for a NYE wedding, start locking vendors down now. Also, know ahead of time that some vendors charge additional NYE fees. It makes sense, though. They need to cover the increased cost of throwing simultaneous NYE and wedding parties.

All right, I’ve got New Year’s plans to make. Happy holidays, everyone. See you next year!

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2020 Color of the Year is 'Classic Blue'

12/16/2019

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The future is blue. Pantone just announced its color for 2020 is "Classic Blue" - a kind of deep, electric azure.

Photo courtesy of Pantone

This is great news for people who like a lot of contrast in their compositions - and weddings! For New England in particularly, I've always liked how a wedding theme with a striking blue sits against fall foliage.

Every year, Pantone sets the table for a color conversation that designers and artists are happy to take up. The New Jersey company is best known for its proprietary color matching system as well as its "color of the year" proclamations. Whether you like the color or not, it will be showing up in art, fashion, magazines, design, decor and weddings. (I like it!)

Will we be seeing Classic Blue featured in Western Massachusetts 2020 weddings?

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2019 Wedding Industry Vendor Blender, Northampton MA

12/16/2019

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I didn’t plan on entering the ugly Christmas sweater contest at last night's holiday vendor blender, but I’m not sure everyone there realized it. Lol! Organized by CJC Events, monthly vendor blenders are a much appreciated industry night out.

This year we partied at Union Station in Northampton, Massachusetts and congratulated Neil Gadbois, the facility’s new event planner, who just booked 50 weddings for 2020. That’s some serious hustle and if his wedding planning skills are anything like the hosting he did last night, people are going to be happy having events there.
The blender included a toy drive that appears to have been a success in no small part due to the efforts of TC Disc Jockey owner Tony who brought a push cart filled with toys to the party.

Every vendor blender typical features a topic such as effective social media strategy or how to do boudoir photography, with a local pro giving a presentation. Last night's topic was all good vibes spread by CJC’s owner Lisa Powers. Powers has been doing events in the Pioneer Valley for 20 years and has been holding vendor blenders for … I don’t know how long.

I was happy to meet some new people last night including Karen and Mark Murdoch; they’re opening Worthington Vineyard and Winery in Somers, Connecticut, where they also hope to host weddings and other events. Wine and weddings go together like love and marriage or a horse and carriage (that’s a MWC ref or a Frank Sinatra ref depending on your generation ;). Also, Karen is a chemical engineer and I bet that influences how she and her husband make wine to an interesting degree.

The wedding business in Western Massachusetts is competitive; HaleChannel has worked hard to become an industry standout here among so many skilled people. But it's also supportive and friendly. We network and recommend each other when a job calls and we're booked or a bride is searching for a vendor. I've always felt that if you practice community before competition you will be so much more successful in this industry.

I don't know if we'd have this strong of a professional community without these CJC quarterly gettogethers. This is a long way of saying thank you to Lisa Powers; keep those blenders coming!

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Western Massachusetts Engagement Season -- with Numbers!

12/6/2019

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If it seems like you've been hearing a lot about engagements lately, that's because it's engagement season! The wedding industry has its seasons and the holidays is a big one for all of us vendors. I was looking for some statistics on engagements when I stumbled across Congress’ wedding guide. Which is strange, right? Because who knew the U.S. Congress was into this stuff. Anyway, turns out, they had some pretty good info. I found a treasure chest of interesting U.S. engagement and wedding factoids compiled by Trip Savvy, a travel website.

Like did you know that …
-- 16 percent of wedding proposals occur in December
-- The average American engagement lasts 15 months
-- Every year 2.4 million weddings are performed in the U.S., including 44,230 weddings each weekend
-- 3 out of 4 couples live together before getting married.

There’s more!
-- The most popular month for weddings are September and October
-- Only 33 percent of weddings take place in a religious institution - 43 percent are officiated by a friend of family member
-- The average number of wedding guests is 136
-- The average per guest cost is $268
-- Each guest spends about $703 to attend a wedding

Juan proposed to Brittany in Look Park, Northampton and we were there to film it all! It was set up as a portrait shoot but Brittany didn't know I was actually filming and Juan had big plans in store. I later went on to film their wedding at Saltwater Farm Vinyard. You can see their wedding [here].

I see a lot of these trends playing out here in Western Massachusetts. I always get a wave of phone calls around the holidays from newly engaged couples eager to start planning for their wedding videos.

A couple of times, the groom-to-be has arranged for me to film the wedding proposal without the bride-to-be knowing. I usually try not to stand out while I’m behind the camera, but I don’t usually have to be invisible - this challenge always makes these jobs a lot of fun. And the look on the girl’s face when the guy gets down on one knee is priceless, I’ll never get tired of getting to play a part in such a special moment.

Congratulations to all the couples who have and will be making beautiful commitments this engagement season!

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Congratulations you two!

12/4/2019

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Photo courtesy of Facebook

Congratulations to my cousin Jay Cox and sister-in-law Andrea Palpini on their recent engagement. These two met and reconnected at parties my wife and I threw over the years. If you all need any vendor suggestions, I may be able to help ;)

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Free for NYE: Filming New Year's Eve Weddings in Western Massachusetts

2020 Color of the Year is 'Classic Blue'

The future is blue. Pantone just announced its color for 2020 is "Classic Blue" - a kind of deep, electric azure.

2019 Wedding Industry Vendor Blender, Northampton MA

Western Massachusetts Engagement Season -- with Numbers!

Congratulations you two!

Brian Hale

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