It's still January so it's still acceptable for me to talk about New Year's resolutions.
2024 was an interesting year. While I didn't achieve some of my goals last year, some big and very unexpected things happened. Let's talk about it.
The main goal I had last year was to book 10 weddings. Well, technically that did happen. However, 2 of those 10 were cancelled by the couples. I've never had a wedding that I was booked for get cancelled so it was a bit of a shock that I got hit with two cancellations in the same year, but I get it, things happen. So did I hit my goal of 10 weddings? Yes and no, but it was still more weddings than I booked in 2023 so I'll take it!
Outside of weddings, I love to work with local bands and make promotional videos and music videos. I had a goal to shoot two music videos last year and I only did one, but I love how it turned out. It was for my husband's band, Saxony, for their song called No One's Knockin'. Go check it out here if you're interested! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PKDxuBiwObs. I also had a goal to make two band promo videos as well and only made one, but was booked for two. One of them was cancelled because of the hurricane that came through in September. This was supposed to be an outside gig so it would have been very unsafe to still do it. It's weird that there were so many cancellations last year... hope this doesn't continue in 2025.
This is were things got really exciting for Burn Bright last year! I had a couple of really funny wedding clips absolutely blow up on social media and racked up millions of views. I knew these clips were funny and they would perform well, but I had no idea that they would do THIS well so I was blown away. Because of these videos, I went from having a few hundred followers on all of my platforms to over 2,000 followers on Tik Tok, over 6,000 followers on my Facebook page, and over 1,000 subscribers on my YouTube channel. IN. SANE. I had followers goals I wanted to hit last year and because of these two viral videos, they got blown out of the water and exceeded my expectations.
My 2025 goals are about the same as what I set for last year, and they will probably stay the same until I hit them. I'd love to book (and actually film lol) 10-12 weddings this year. As of January, I'm already booked for 6 so I think this is very doable. I've also just joined the Louisville Wedding Network so I'm excited to make more connections with vendors and be more involved in the Louisville wedding community! I'm also pushing myself to do at least one (maybe two) wedding shows with LWN this year. I'm pretty shy so having to talk to strangers for hours sounds like a nightmare, but I'm trying to push myself out of my comfort zone a little and try again. I didn't have any success from the first wedding show I did in 2023, but I learned a lot from doing it and I'm changing how I'm doing my next one (which will be February 16th! Come check it out!)
I'm definitely shooting one music video this year, but would love to do a second. I'm also already booked for one band promo video and I believe I can do three total this year.
A big goal for this year is to have 1-2 long form videos a month on my YouTube channel and build up my audience there. I'm also in the process of working on three demo reels: an updated wedding demo reel showcasing 2023 and 2024 weddings, a band promo and music video demo reel, and then a big reel showing everything I've made since my last demo reel in 2021... that's going to be a big one. This was something I tried to do last year, but didn't make time for so I'm excited to finally have some updated demo reels.
These are some smaller goals that I had set last year but didn't hit. I'd also love to keep up with this blog and write at least a post a month. I think this is doable if I can post a YouTube video once a month to go with my blog posts. I'd also love to do a Claymation/stop motion video. I've always been fascinated with animation and I've dabbled in stop motion before, but I'd love to get better at it. I also want to figure out how to sell stock footage as a way to make a little bit of passive income. I don't have a ton of storage space to keep a lot of raw footage so I might not still have a lot to sell, but it's definitely something I want to look into.
But the biggest goals I have this year is to hire a second shooter to help me with weddings, and to make $20,000 a year. Hiring a second shooter is something I've been really needing to do for a while now. I've been afraid to pull the trigger on it because it's hard to find someone I trust and that I would enjoy working with, but I know this will greatly benefit my business so I need to start interviewing people. Having a second shooter will help me get closer to my biggest goal of making $20,000 in a year. The long term goal has always been to make Burn Bright my full time job and hitting this milestone will get me one step closer. I think if I hit all of these project goals I've set for myself (and I don't buy too much this year lol), this could happen for me this year! In order to meet this goal, I need your help. Please refer me to anyone you know who is getting married this year, or if you know someone in a band that wants a video. Even if it's for a video outside of weddings and bands, I'd love to help! I'm already doing a lot of different video projects that I've never done before so I'm down to try and learn along the way!
