2009 ~ A Year in Review for Cloud Nine

Happy New Year, everyone!  We’ve been meaning to do this 2009 recap post for a while but travel hasn’t permitted us to upload it until now.

So here it is!

2009 was an amazing year filled with loads of travel, lots of fun and a whole new host of friendships/colleagues and clients that came into our lives. We had a couple of bumps along the road in early 09 but as usual, everything in life happens for a reason.

It’s sappy and maybe if you’re reading this you’ll think I’m the cheesiest person on earth for saying this but Bruce and I truly believe our work, for the most part is like a grand adventure. . . both geographically and personally. Our lives are continuously enriched by the clients and colleagues we meet along the way and by the creative challenges we issue for ourselves! I guess you could say our destiny is unfolding quite nicely (albeit busily)!

We have been to parts of the world that I could only dream about as a teenager… (and yes, I was THAT geeky teenager who used to daydream up in my bedroom, conjuring up all sorts of fantasies about where I’d be as a ‘grown-up’ and what handsome guy I’d be married to). Growing up in Napanee, Ontario, I couldn’t even imagine the places I’d get to see – just that I wanted to see them.

So, where have we been? What have we seen? Who have we met in 2009? Where do I even begin? Well, I guess I need to cheat a bit and start at the very tail end of ’08.

Dec 6/08
INTRODUCING, the 5D Mark II
Early in the am on Dec 6, I was waiting in a hotel in Toronto for Bruce. We’d had tickets booked for months to fly TOGETHER from Vancouver to Toronto, then onto Barcelona for a romantic European cruise. But, at the last minute we changed plans. Bruce shifted his flight around in order to shoot the “Fusion is Now” DVD with our good friends, Jen and Steve Bebb. The DVD was all about a fancy schmancy new camera called the Canon 5D Mark II. It was the first camera to shoot both professional photos AND HD video and also, the first one in Canada to be released for an early-bird review by the Bebbs. Although we had been planning our ‘winter getaway’ for months, Bruce really didn’t want to miss the opportunity to work with Jen and Steve (and the 5D Mark II) with such a revolutionary new camera. So, he shot the project on the 5th and arrived at 7am on the 6th to Toronto. Our plane left at 10am for Barcelona. (On a sidenote, this fancy schmancy camera COMPLETELY revolutionized our business this year, but I’m not going to get techie. That’s Bruce’s area of expertise).

Dec 7/08
A EUROPEAN VACATION
We arrived in Barcelona and boarded a cruise ship. Royal Caribbean. Holiday! We were the youngest people on the ship by a landslide

Dec 9 Malaga, Spain
Dec 11 Madera, Portugal
Dec 12 La Palma, Canary Islands
Dec 13 Tenerife, Canary Islands
Dec 14 Lanzarote, Canary Islands
Dec 16 Casablanca, Morocco and Marakesh, Morocco
Dec 17/18 Lisbon, Portugal
Dec 19 Seville, Spain
Dec 21 Barcelona
Dec 23 Toronto

Dec 29 – Jan 4
DETOURS and DELAYS, LOS ANGELES

Somewhere around Dec 29, our good friend Kristen from Bliss called Bruce and asked him if he’d like to join her in LA to shoot a swanky Mindy Weiss event. Although we’d been on the road for almost a month by this point, Bruce jumped at the chance. Little did he know… a quick jaunt would turn into a LONG delay. Vancouver suffered a severe snowstorm on the return portion of his trip and he had to stay at LAX for 2 days after the shoot! By time he got home, he had been away from his own bed for a month!

Jan 28-31
TORONTO TURNING POINT
We head back to Toronto. Our trips to Toronto were ever-more frequent since we were meeting with lots of video clients and doing lots of photo shoots and meetings with WedLuxe. This trip would be a turning point for us and not exactly a positive one. While there, on this trip we signed a lease for a 2200 sq ft free standing loft building. We had been searching for something for months prior and I had found this building on Kijiji online. Once we saw it, we knew it was perfect. Beautiful. Spacious. Modern. We decided we would move our office headquarters from Vancouver to Toronto. It was a big, bold, scary decision but we moved ahead with gusto like we do on most things! We decided on a March 1 possession date. Signed a contract for a one year lease term with the option to buy the bldg at the end of the term. The location was a bit off-beat… the bldg was sort of located between two streets. Charming! Part of the charm of Toronto is that it’s kind of like NYC. Streets are jammed in EVERYWHERE so we thought nothing of the ‘unusual’ position of the building. Ahem. We were excited. This was going to be a turning point and we were going to hire an admin staff and a graphic designer to work full time for us at this space, in Toronto. We thought we’d live there half of the year. We set back to Vancouver intent on putting wheels in motion to move. We gave notice to our office landlord in Vancouver and told her we were moving the office to Toronto. I hired a moving company to take all of our furniture from the office in Vancouver to Toronto and settled on a March 14 arrival date for the furniture. I knew it was going to be tricky at best to move during production on WedLuxe, but what the heck, we love a challenge.

Feb 16-20
VIVA LAS VEGAS
We stayed at the Wynn Las Vegas for WPPI. Bruce was in heaven checking out the lenses and gear for the new cameras we had bought. Ran into tons of our photographer friends at the show who didn’t expect to see a video guy at the camera show but times are a changin’. I was in heaven too because my sister and her husband met us and we enjoyed their company over the week. I was anxious about the upcoming office move though… and knee-deep in production for the new issue.

Mar 6
SCREECHING HALT
Angie to TORONTO
Back to Toronto. This time, it’s a big trip! I packed two giant suitcases with linen, towels, an assortment of important documents, etc and was EXTREMELY excited to get the keys to our new office/loft. Bruce couldn’t come with me because he was heading to Cuba (see next post) for the wedding of Melissa + Kevin. I arrived late on the night of the 6th and went straight over to pick up Carolyn (our Sales Manager who lives in Toronto). She had already received the keys on the 1st from our new landlord.

Carolyn and I drove right over to the place (I was so excited to see it again). I was somewhat overwhelmed to be doing the set up without Bruce, my partner in crime (and resident heavy lifter) but also excited. The next day was going to be BUSY. The landlord was coming over to pick up our post-dated chqs for the year and I was going to be going on an Ikea shopping spree to furnish our new place.
Bright and early the next day, we met our new landlord.

Then, the bottom dropped out.

I was standing in the middle of the kitchen signing over a TON of lease payments when I casually asked about the mail. I hadn’t noticed a mailbox so I thought maybe the mailman knocked and gave personal service! Wouldn’t that be charming!? ““So, where does the mail get delivered?” I asked. The landlord sort of stared at me and then stammered. “Ummm, didn’t the real estate agent tell you? We don’t get MAIL delivery here.”

Here’s where you insert a giant screeching soundtrack into this paragraph. I’m sorry WHAT? No mail!? How is this possible? The agent KNEW we were a business… she knew we were a national magazine business… yet no, she had NOT mentioned this little ‘no mail service’ detail.

The thing about running a national magazine is that we get mail. Alot of it. Any business does, I’d imagine. But, the thing about having a house in Vancouver and an office in Toronto is that I wasn’t planning on having a car parked out front of a Toronto office all the time to drive ten blocks to the nearest post office/PO box. And, my employees who would be there frequently without me, don’t have cars either. And even if I DID have access to a car, I’m not driving to the post office to collect my daily mail. It would severely negatively impact the way we do business. So what was I supposed to do? The lease was signed. The payments were due. The furniture was being shipped out the very next day for delivery from Vancouver, even our other office was in the middle of being re-leased. We’d also lost a Vancouver based employee who decided she’d pursue another career path once she realized we were moving the HQ to Toronto! NIGHTMARE.

You’re probably asking: how is this even possible? It turns out that the building wasn’t actually registered as an official ‘address’ in the city of Toronto. Therefore, it had no postal code. And, you have NO idea what is NOT possible without a postal code. Heat, hydro, cable, water, no problem. Mail? Pizza delivery? UPS or FEDEX finding you… forget it. I even found out later that the POLICE and FIRE would have no way of finding us in an emergency situation if I couldn’t describe the location.

How does this happen? Well, it happens when an old Coach house that sits between two streets is renovated into a loft and doesn’t get a proper recognized POSTAL CODE of it’s own.

It felt like the world was coming down on me. The worst part of all of this was that Bruce was in CUBA and I couldn’t reach him easily. What would he do? What would he think? YIKES! We normally do everything together. But I had to act quickly before I handed over all of the cheques.

I did the only thing I knew to do. I stopped in the middle of writing the cheques and I said, “I’m sorry. I can’t do this.” And, inside I was DYING. The look on the landlord’s face was a mixture of anger, frustration and understanding. His agent had let both of us down, in a big way. He scrambled to provide a solution but I knew it was not going to work out and I knew we were in a bit of a jam.

Long story short (and believe me there is WAY more to this story), we ended up losing $5000 and a whole lot of time and energy. Thankfully we were able to stop the furniture from being packed up in Vancouver and our landlord in Burnaby said no problem… we could remain where we were. We were back to square one on much-needed office space in Toronto but we had to reshift our plan and so we did. Life and business resumed in Vancouver. It was a set back, but it would lead to a better plan.

Mar 6-14
HELLO HAVANA
Bruce was in HAVANA, CUBA for Kevin and Melissa’s wedding. When we finally reached each other, he was 100% on side with my decision to kibosh the Toronto office.

March 21
HELLO SAN FRANCISCO
Bruce headed down to San Fran to meet up with our ReFrame partners Julie from Elysium, Kristen from Bliss and Jason Magbanua from Manila to put finishing details on the new announcement of Jason joining the ownership team for future Re:Frame events!

Mar 26
Vicky + Lei’s wedding @ The Four Seasons Vancouver. Here are their highlights.

March 30 – April 8
TORONTO STATE OF MIND
Both of us flew back to TORONTO for WedLuxe photo shoots for the Summer/Fall 09 issue. Staying in a hotel was a costly slap after our recent loss on the loft, but it had to be done. We shot some beautiful things and worked with some incredible photographers and stylists for our Colour Issue.

April 13
Welcome Esther Chaye (Graphic Designer)

April 27-29
RE:FRAME AUSTIN
We are owners/partners in The Re:Frame Collective. Re:Frame exists to educate and inspire wedding filmmakers from around the world. We hosted two conferences in 09. The first was held in Austin and was amazing… Bruce connected with lots of our colleagues and taught a seminar on the business behind the business of Cloud Nine.

May
Jessica + Luca’s Wedding ~ here is their Same-Day-Edit
Welcome Monica Martinez (Cinematographer)
Welcome back Camila Martinez (Cinematographer/Editor)

June
WedLuxe Colour Issue (Summer/Fall 09) hit newsstands across Canada.

June 6-15
THREE WEDDINGS + SDE’s, FOUR DAYS, TWO COUNTRIES
This was a super duper busy weekend. Our film crews shot three weddings in three cities and two countries in four days (AND all three couples had same day edits). Rosemary and Tom were married in Vancouver on June 6 and Tina + Philip were married on June 7. Meanwhile, I was burning the late night oil with Julie and Kristen working on the new ReFrame website for Re:Frame San Francisco which launched that weekend. (Yay Show-It Sites, we love you). On Sunday June 8 we high-tailed it to MAUI (my fav place on earth) for Ashley and Adam’s Monday wedding on June 9 in Wailea. You can read all about their wedding in the current issue of WedLuxe!

June 20
Another crazy busy weekend! Our Cloud Nine crews shot another two weddings on this Saturday. We had one crew in Toronto filming Lynda + Trung and one crew in Vancouver filming Tammy + Oliver.

June 27-28
THREE WEDDINGS + A RED EYE TO PEORIA, ILLINOIS
We filmed three more beautiful weddings this weekend. Christine + Stephen were married at the Four Seasons and Suzanne + Ray were married at the Fairmont Hotel Vancouver with a Same Day Edit and one in Peoria on Sunday June 28. Carolyn and I were in Peoria for Olivia and Caleb’s wedding. Bruce performed Superman duties and flew on a red eye on Sat night after the wedding of Christine + Stephen to join us at 9 am in Peoria where we pulled off a SDE in five hours that was shown at the lunch reception of Caleb and Olivia. CRAZY but FUN.

July 4
Sylvia + Joe’s Wedding ~ here is their Same-Day-Edit

July 7-17
FLORIDA ADVENTURES
In anticipation of BIG plans for 2010, we have registered WedLuxe in the USA. We spent two weeks in Florida pertaining to our next business venture. More on this in 2010. We enjoyed a VERY busy driving tour of the state that took us around the entire state. We visited Tampa, Naples, Clearwater, Coral Gables. Miami, Ft. Lauderdale and Orlando.

July 18
Jacquie + Eric’s Wedding in Toronto

July 20-22
COTTAGE COUNTRY
Spent a few days with family in a beautiful relaxing cottage in south eastern Ontario, where I grew up.

July 25
Grace + John’s Wedding ~ here’s their Same-Day-Edit

August 1
Jennifer + Cameron’s Wedding @ the Fairmont Waterfront Hotel

August 2
Kriscia + Stephen’s Wedding

August 8
Stephanie + James’ Wedding ~ here is their Same-Day-Edit

August 15
A BEVERLY HILLS HOTEL WEDDING
Our good friend Julie Hill @ Elysum Productions called and wanted us to shoot a big wedding she had scheduled for the Beverly Hills Hotel – how could Bruce resist another Southern California gig?

August 29
Judy + Alex’s Wedding ~ here is their Same-Day-Edit

September 4-7
NBA ADVENTURES IN Atlanta
Bruce, Camila and I could be found in the peachy keen state of Georgia over the first weekend in Sept. We filmed an INCREDIBLE wedding of a very well-known NBA player. Can’t say much more because it’s confidential and all that stuff. But, it was an experience driving around on golf carts on a 280 acre estate. Amazing event.

September 8-17
HELLO TORONTO
Running theme for the year. Our trips to Toronto. We love it there but, more importantly, we have lots of work there between our filming and our WedLuxe production/shoots. During this trip we realized we should consider buying a second place and we connected with a fabulous agent who showed us some really great properties. But, we were nervous and so we left without making an offer. We didn’t leave, however, without filming Kristen + Nick’s wedding.

September 12
Andrea + Charbel’s Wedding

September 18-20
BEAUTIFUL BANFF
We left Toronto on a late night flight and arrived just in time to film the gorgeous wedding of Veronica and Dominic. The Banff Springs Hotel is one of the most beautiful places in Canada. Their newly renovated Gold Floor is a treat… waking up to the most incredible Mountain/Valley vista was a reminder of how lucky we are to live in Canada.

September 19
Andrea + Craig’s Wedding

October
WEDLUXE ~ we created the Winter/Spring Edition and sent it to the press!
Welcome Jessica Strothard (Editor)