Where did 2010 go? Honestly, I feel like I was just writing the blog post for our Diva Class of 2009!
At the end of 2009 we started setting some goals for 2010. One of them was to be included by powerhouse bridal publication The Knot in their 2010 Best of Weddings list. So in December of 2009, Rob and I did a little happy dance around the studio when we got the The Knot Florida winter 2010 issue, and there we were listed under videographers for Best of Weddings. Even better, we were the only videographers from the Florida panhandle to be recognized! I remember thinking, "well that's cool, I've already got one thing checked off the 2010 Diva to-do list."
In January we made the decision to go ahead and move into high definition filming and to start producing wedding trailers (sneak peeks) for all of our wedding films. We also decided to stay ahead of the curve in our area and film with a combination of Canon DSLR cameras and traditional HD video cams. We invested in new off-camera lighting, audio equipment, more powerful computers to handle the HD video, and what seems like an endless army of external hard drives to store the huge files HD video creates. Based on the 35 weddings we shot in 2009, and the number of weddings we had on the books for 2010, we were sure 2010 was going to be a breakout year for us....
Fast forward to April 20, 2010. The date of the BP oil spill. At the time we had no idea how drastically our lives and our business would be affected, but as we moved into May, we quickly began to realize that our late summer/early autumn weddings were going to be impacted by the threat of oil on our beautiful beaches. Thankfully, we never saw any oil, but the threat of it was enough to alter the course of our year. We have no idea how many weddings were relocated to other parts of the country, but by our own numbers we shot 35 weddings in 2009, and only 23 in 2010. We can't even begin to tell you how much we appreciate our 23 couples who decided to go ahead with their weddings here on the gulf coast.
Luckily it wasn't all doom and gloom because of the oil spill. Plenty of our couples from 2008 and 2009 began welcoming children into their families, we ran our first television commercial for Diva Productions on WE, we won another ADDY award for our corporate work, produced commercials and PSA's for some of our favorite corporate clients, we were recognized again by the Wedding Wire Bride's Choice Awards, and no less than five of our couples were featured in nationally circulated wedding magazines.
In September we checked a HUGE item off our 2010 to-do list when we were asked by the fabulous wedding resource Style Me Pretty to join their Little Black Book. And in November we were featured not once, but TWICE on the blog. {I'm still giddy.}
On a more personal note, I've continued to write my "What You Need to Know" series for the regional bridal publication Gulf Coast Bride. I get a huge kick out of it when I share the magazine with one of our couples and they say "I read that! That was you?" And in August 2010, I was honored to be a guest blogger on POSH about the art of conducting interviews. In December, Event DV Magazine asked me to write a recap on the POSH experience, so all in all, 2010 allowed me to hang onto my love of journalism and the written word.
So what does 2011 hold? God only knows, but if 2010 taught us anything, it's to do all we can to be the best versions of ourselves and to leave the rest of it in his hands. Happy New Year!
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