Juniper Hill Inn, Windsor VT

Rachael Ray arrived last month on horsback and had dinner with her husband and our closest friends and guest. Sophie and Simba both had their moment on her lap and her dog Isaboo played with a ball on front lawn.
Moore to come.

‘People Will Always Get Married’
By Chris Fleisher
Valley News Business Writer

Florists, innkeepers, photographers and caterers all have their financial peaks and valleys. But from April to October, they can almost always depend on one part of their business, no matter the economic circumstances of the moment.

“Some believe weddings are recession-proof,” said Judy Risteff, owner of the Vermont Wedding Association. “I believe they are because people will always get married.”

That conventional wisdom has so far proven mostly true for many of the Upper Valley’s vendors.

Wedding party bookings at the Hanover Inn, for example, have doubled from last year, according to the inn. And photographers, including Paige Hiller in Woodstock, say they, too, are busier.

For many of these businesses, weddings are a vital and stable revenue stream, accounting for more than half of annual sales in many cases. But as nearly every sector of the economy has learned, no one is entirely insulated from the current economic crisis.

The wedding industry may have proven remarkably resilient, but the small business owners who depend on it say they must work harder to convince couples their services are worth the expense.

“I think that the scare of the economy, and the threat of potentially not having a job next quarter is actively holding people back from a lot of things,” said Robert Dean, co-owner of the Juniper Hill Inn in Windsor.

Bookings this year have come later than normal, Dean said last week, with people making reservations closer to the actual date of the wedding. In January, Juniper Hill had just three weddings planned for the year, or about one-third the usual number. Activity picked up in the spring, and it now has eight weddings for 2009. But couples are much more cost-conscious, Dean said, no matter the size of the budget.

The July 4 weekend, for example, the inn hosted a three-day affair that cost an estimated $60,000, he said. Everything turned out fine, Dean said, and the guests seemed to have had a great time. But halfway through the planning, the bride’s father lost his job.

“Knowing that he lost his job made us more aware of cost,” Dean said.

Other customers have cut certain options, like going without a tent, he said. It’s a risky bet, especially given the recent rainy weather, but one couples are willing to make to save money, he said.

Lloyd Gabourel, the assistant general manager at Home Hill Inn in Plainfield, said weddings have always been budget-conscious occasions, and they are even more so this year. Some are going with cash bars instead of an open bar and opting for a disc jockey over a live band.

“We’re finding that people with larger budgets are prioritizing more than they have in the past,” he said.

Still, those concerns haven’t hurt the actual volume of bookings. The inn has been chasing wedding business more aggressively since coming under new management a year and a half ago.

As a result, it has more than doubled its number of weddings — from five in 2008 to a dozen this year — and already taken a reservation for 2011, he said.

Florists also have reported steady volume. But do-it-yourselfers have cut into the size of some jobs, said Morgan Perrone, a floral designer at Valley Flower Co. in West Lebanon. Perrone said Valley Flower relies on weddings for half its annual revenue. This year, she has about 40 jobs, the same number as 2008. However, people want only the essentials.

“What I’m finding is people are choosing to do their own centerpieces and having us do personal things, like corsages,” she said.

The orders also have been coming in later. Usually, she hears from brides months in advance. The wedding party she has this weekend hired her just three weeks ago, she said.

Carolyn Sailer, who owns Christophe Chef Services in Brownsville with her husband, Chris, said she also has noticed later bookings and smaller parties. Typically, Sailer said, they work with weddings up to 400 people. This year, the larger ones have come in at around 250.

“We’re finding that we’re having a lot of smaller jobs,” she said.

Realizing that late bookings and a desire for flexibility were becoming the norm, Blood’s Catering in Hartford partnered with the Upper Valley Events Center to set up a semi-permanent tent at the Events Center’s Norwich complex.

It’s a risk, said owner Mike Blood, but one that he is willing to take if it means some extra business. It will save them time and money in setup and breakdown costs, and could lead to a catering job if someone chooses to rent it.

“We’re hoping to capture those last-minute changes, and it’s also discounted,” Blood said.

Wedding catering is a substantial part of Blood’s business, especially as corporate functions drop off, he said. Blood underscores the fact with his marketing: A slide show on the company’s Web site has alternating photos of a bride and bridesmaids, champagne corks popping and elegant tent parties.

The company has a small room at its Route 5 facility dedicated to showing off its event offerings. Tables with formal place settings and serving equipment are on display by the front entrance.

Blood has about 35 weddings this year, which is down a little, but nothing too concerning. It has helped support him this summer as business events taper off. “Thank God we’re in the wedding business because the corporate is soft,” Blood said. “If you’re only in corporate catering, you’re in deep doo-doo.”

Small extras — another hour from the photographer, a few dollars knocked off on the table and chair rental — have proven to be an important incentive this year, said Risteff of the Vermont Wedding Association. More important than the actual price, she said, is that people feel they are getting good value.

“If you can offer the slightest concession, it doesn’t have to be a huge monetary concession,” Risteff said. “Spend another hour taking pictures. That’s what these couples are looking for.”

Hiller, the photographer in Woodstock, competes on value rather than price. Quality, combined with some savvy online marketing, has helped her double her wedding business even as she increased rates.

“They’re not spending less on photography,” she said. “They’re cutting corners in other areas.”

Julie Ireland, a photographer in Hartland Four Corners, said she has included a couple of freebies in her package, such as an “engagement portrait” of the couple before they get married. She doesn’t try to sell herself on price, however.

“I treat my clients very personally,” she said. “Little things like that mean a lot to people.”

And as with the florists, the innkeepers, the chefs and everyone else, Ireland sees herself as providing a critical service to the couple getting married. This, ideally, is a one-shot deal. It is one special day that her photographs will preserve forever.

And when it’s put that way, almost no one wants to get cheap.

“From my perspective, the photographs are what they have when the meal is finished and the flowers are put away,” she said. “People understand that, so they’re pretty generous toward it.”

Dr. Irving Williams, far right, and his wife, not pictured, received the Windsor Freedom Award at a reception at the Juniper Hill Inn in late May. Dignitaries in attendance included Ombeni Y. Sefue, center, ambassador to the Republic of Tanzania. At far left is Sefue’s wife Anita. Standing next to her is Dorothy Douglas, Vermont Gov. Jim Douglas’ wife.

Windsor Welcomes the World

Windsor Welcomes the World

Lately, the Birthplace of Vermont Has Seemed Like a Global Hub
By John Woodrow Cox
Valley News Staff Writer

Windsor — In a country 6,030 miles from the Upper Valley, with a population just more than half that of New York City — where a now-dead former Soviet bureaucrat headed an authoritarian regime that shut the world out for 15 years — a handful of government officials in Turkmenistan crowded around a table Tuesday evening and chatted about Windsor.

Well, not just Windsor, but Vermont’s birthplace was at least part of the conversation.

In fact, the town of about 3,500 has turned into an international hub, of sorts, in the last two months. In separate visits and for unrelated reasons, groups from Turkmenistan, the Philippines, Tanzania and China have all visited Windsor.

The Turkmen delegation toured the town as part of a weeklong look at local government operations in the United States. In Vermont, they also visited Hartford and Montpelier.

Saparmurat Niyazov, Turkmenistan’s eccentric longtime leader who was named “President for Life” in 1999, died three years ago, clearing the way for the country to pursue more openness.

“Turkmenistan is a country that until about five years ago was about as closed or more so than North Korea,” said Marilynne Davis of the Urban Institute, one of the organizations that helped arrange the trip. “The people who are now running the country are looking to modernize it.”

Rather than take the Turkmen officials to typical destinations like New York, Las Vegas or Los Angeles, organizers wanted to show them smaller towns that would offer the visitors more realistic insight into how municipal governments function in the United States.

“We wanted them to see a small community that was struggling with funding but still providing its own services,” Davis said. “They are always surprised by all the functions the local governments carry out and how independent they are.”

As a town that grapples annually with paying for its aging infrastructure, yet still carries on, Windsor fit the bill. Davis said she’d previously worked with Ted Siegler, of Windsor-based DSM Environmental Services, through some of the Urban Institute’s projects. Knowing that Davis wanted the Turkmen group to see small-town government first-hand, he recommended Windsor.

As a way to welcome his guests, Town Manager Steve Cottrell wore a traditional mushroom-shaped Turkmen hat when they arrived. Selectman John Tansey, who had spent time in East Asia with the Peace Corps, loaned Cottrell the headwear, made of sheep’s wool, but it was a bit small for Cottrell’s head.

“They got a chuckle out of that,” Cottrell said. “They were really yukking it up out there in the parking lot when they saw me.”

Cottrell guided them through most of Windsor’s departments and explained how residents register to vote, how the town runs elections and how officials collect taxes.

The Turkmen were most surprised that almost everyone in town pays taxes, and the government doesn’t need physical force to collect. In the Soviet system, Davis said, people did whatever they could to avoid taxation because the government didn’t have the resources to monitor who paid and who didn’t.

“They could not get over,” Davis said, “that we just do it.”

At the roundtable discussion, Shirin Ahmedova, the group’s spokeswoman and director of Turkmenistan’s Institute of Democracy and Human Rights, said Vermont and Windsor’s openness, more than anything else, resonated with them during the visit.

“We were very impressed with the seriousness of governments about transparency of information, especially on grants and budget information,” she said, according to Davis’ notes from the meeting. “We saw this at the local governments and at the state government in Vermont when we visited the legislative committees.”

Almost a month to the day after the Turkmen officials admired Windsor’s tax system and posed for pictures in the back of its ambulances, Ombeni Sefue and his wife, Anita Sefue, sat at a table awaiting breakfast in the Juniper Hill Inn as an early-morning rain tapped at the nearby window.

Ombeni Sefue, the Tanzanian ambassador to the United States, said Windsor reminded him Lushoto, a city in the mountains of his homeland that sits 6,000 feet above sea level.

“What really struck me is the beautiful scenery,” Sefue said, just before he spooned steaming oatmeal from his bowl. “It’s a very nice change from New York and Washington. … I like small towns.”

In their first visit to Vermont, he and his wife were honoring Irving and Elvira Williams, founders of the Maryland-based Adventures in Health, Education and Agricultural Development, a nonprofit that works to promote healthy living and eliminate disease in Tanzania and other African countries.

The Williamses were recipients of the inaugural Windsor Freedom Award, created and presented for the first time through the Juniper Hill Inn to people who, co-owner Robert Dean said, have greatly improved the lives of others.

As part of the award ceremony, which doubled as a fundraiser for the nonprofit, Seldon Technologies pledged to donate three water purification systems to Tanzania, where tainted water causes a high rate of infant mortality and other health problems.

“We have a big problem with access to safe water,” Sefue said. “Equipment that helps us purify water are just the kind of things we need.”

Just before the late-May award presentation, the Juniper Hill Inn also hosted a group of Chinese travel officials as part of a nationwide tour sponsored by the U.S. Commercial Service.

“They dined with us,” Dean said, “and we showed them international hospitality.”

The visiting Chinese executives said although Vermont is beautiful, it’s not well known to people in China and may take time to market.

“Vermont is truly a place for holiday and vacation (especially) for Chinese tourists from relatively developed areas like Shanghai and (Yangtze) River delta for they could fully enjoy the peacefulness and tranquility of Vermont,” Cai Jian Nong, Vice President of Suzhou China Travel International, wrote in an e-mail. “New England will probably be placed behind (other U.S. destinations), however, with … time and the door open wider, Vermont will definitely become a hot spot for Chinese tourists.”

Through a Rotary Foundation exchange program, another group from Asia visited the Upper Valley and Windsor at about the same time.

A doctor, school superintendent, marketing professional, entrepreneur and artist from the Philippines hopped from town to town throughout the Upper Valley during their nearly month-long stay, but the highlight of the trip, they said, may have been in Windsor.

Tansey’s wife, Nida Tansey, is Filipino and comes from the same province, Cebu, and speaks the same language, Cebuano, as the group members. One afternoon, they visited her house, and she cooked dried fish and rice, the first non-American meal they’d eaten in weeks.

“We hugged each other, and I was really surprised they were from my native country,” Nida Tansey said. “It was really fun.”

Sitting on a couch at the Hotel Coolidge in White River Junction after a canoeing trip down the Connecticut River, the group discussed their visits to museums, schools and hospitals and the host of houses in which they’d stayed and slept during the whirlwind trip, but the home-style meal, they said, was special.

“Our eyes lit up when we were eating dried fish,” said 25-year-old Golda King. “It felt like home.”

The recent barrage of international attention, Dean said, is just a sign of the new Windsor, and he believes it will continue.

“The fact is, Windsor three years ago was a totally different place than it is today, and I think it will be totally different in three more years,” Dean said. “It’s what happens in a community when it gets some momentum.”

John Woodrow Cox can be reached at 603-727-3305 or jcox@vnews.com.

This post comes late as I am technologically challenged!  Juniper Hill Inn is pleased to announce a wine tasting dinner Tuesday, June 30, 2009 in our historic dining room.  Artisanal Cellars and Juniper Hill Inn are hosting the owners/wine makers of Chateau Camplazens from France.  Some delicious wines and outstanding cuisine will be featured and the entire evening cost just $69 plus tax and grautity per person.  Try something different from Woodstock restaurants and Hanover restaurants and come explore the Windsor dining scene. Call the inn for details and reservations.

Robert Dean – AHEAD Project

A delegation of Chinese travel agents and journalists visited Vermont last week. The six-person delegation from the Shanghai region of China will travel around Vermont to learn about tourism options for Chinese residents. Juniper Hill Inn hosted a dinner for the delegation while touring Woodstock, Dartmount and Windsor.
During the five-day visit, the group will become familiar with Vermont so that the Green Mountain State can be added as a potential tourist destination on travel agents’ itineraries in China. Representatives from the Chinese media will also be writing feature articles about their visit for travel publications in China.
The Fam (or Familiarization) Tour, organized by the U.S. Commercial Service and the Vermont Chamber of Commerce Shanghai office is part of an ongoing partnership with China that the Vermont Chamber has fostered since 1993.
“Chinese travel to Vermont has potential to become a great opportunity for the travel, tourism and hospitality industry in this state,” said Chris Barbieri, interim president and director of the Vermont Chamber of Commerce Asia Division.
The Chinese delegation will visit Ben & Jerry’s, Billings Farm, the Statehouse, Shelburne Museum and take a dinner cruise on Lake Champlain aboard the Spirit of Ethan Allen.
Vermont is one of three stops the group will make in the United States. Before arriving in Vermont, they visited Orlando, Fla. and when they leave Vermont, the group will be going to Chicago before returning to China.
In November, a delegation of Vermont travel industry leaders will be going to China to take part in the China International Travel Mart Trade Show, the largest international travel trade show in East Asia.