At the end of every year, we reflect on our business and try to commemorate it with a word or a phrase. In keeping with this "tradition" we came up with "the year of firsts" to describe our 2024 season.
We kicked off our season with a BANG! May saw our first ever Northern Ontario Wedding Expo; a wedding show highlighting the North's most talented wedding vendors. Barn + Bliss Weddings and Events collaborated with Emily from Table and Pine Photography to make this vision a reality. The event hosted over 50 wedding vendors and a breath taking bridal dress fashion show thanks to Elliott + Olivia in North Bay. We were proud to have the beautiful Natalie Restoule, Indigenous model and role model from Dokis join us amongst several other beautiful models. Duchesne Roasters and Tie the Knot Bartending kept guests and wedding vendors feeling refreshed; a special thank you to these wedding vendors for always being up for our new event ideas. We love you!
In June, we hosted our first ever "Family Fun Day"! The event attracted over 500 individuals from near and far! The event consisted of over 10 giant bouncy structures, a "craft market" featuring incredible local talents, one-of-a-kind food vendors such as Evercool Ice Cream, Duchesne Roasters and Beaver Tales as well as an outstanding team of entertainers for children (i.e. face painting, balloon art, juggling, cotton candy and live music). Our goal with the event was to offer "something different" and affordable for our local families and children to do together without the financial burden that typically comes with "festival" events. Beyond that, we were blown away at the positive feedback from all attendees most leaving us with feedback like "we can't believe that you two pulled this off", "we can't believe that this event is in Sturgeon Falls" as well as the ear-to-ear smiles on everyone who stepped foot on the property. As parents of young children ourselves, it was also incredibly rewarding to host this event and to have the opportunity to join in on the fun with them. Our eldest daughter even took a stab at entrepreneurship with her own bracelet making stand (enter proud parent emoji here).
Next, June saw two of our largest wedding groups ever (250+ guests) and we awarded the opportunity to host our first ever Corporate event for a local Caisse Alliance event. It was an honour to even have been considered for their Staff Recognition Event.
Amongst the most notable of our year of "firsts", was hosting not one but FOUR weddings in a week's period. You may be asking yourself "how is that even possible?". In short, this is a wedding Saturday evening, Sunday evening, Wednesday afternoon and the following Saturday evening! Executing this many weddings required clear and constant communication and precise coordination with our couples and helpers.
This past year we also introduced "pop up" weddings and two couples capitalized on this opportunity. A "pop up" wedding is a wedding done on a very small scale; limited to guest count and time at the venue however, the luxury of a "pop up" wedding is that we (Barn + Bliss Weddings and Events) hired and coordinated all of the additional vendors for the couple. Talk about "STRESS FREE" for couples! We feel that all couple's should live the wedding of their dreams and if our venue is part of that dream, we want to help couples make that a reality.
Finally, Kyle has dreamed of having a "month long" haunted house in October in celebration of Halloween. This year, along with our Halloween team, we finally made this idea a reality. The haunted house was well attended and the feedback was exactly what we were looking for! This haunted house was unlike anything we had ever done at the venue; we limited our visitors senses to increase their fear responses. We utilized both the lower reception space and upper ceremony space + lounge to lengthen the haunt as well.
Screams of terror were heard by many of our local neighbours and they found this to be rather entertaining. The haunted house and Halloween events were hugely successful thanks to the many high school student volunteers that support us year after year. We are so beyond grateful for the opportunity to work with these teens.
We are so, so grateful for the opportunity to be a place where happy memories are made. We cannot think of a more rewarding business to run.
Thank you to everyone for the continued love, encouragement and support.
Much love,
The Carneiro's xx
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