South Egremont — Oskar Hallig had so much fun planning his own wedding that he was inspired to start a business – planning other people’s weddings! Though matrimony was his entrée into the business, Hallig’s company, Only In My Dreams Events, plans all sorts of to-dos, including birthday parties, fun
“The business has been running for two and a half years, but it’s something I’ve been doing all my life,” Hallig says. “For a lot of people the planning is the worst part, but I love figuring out what it takes to make it look seamless in the end.” His business is a sole proprietorship, but he makes it clear that “it’s not really a one man show when an event actually happens. You have suppliers of food and beverages, rentals and florists. So much of it is the interpersonal aspect.”
Hallig grew up in Mount Washington, known as the “town among the clouds,” but now lives in the “booming metropolis” of South Egremont with his husband, Mike. After going to school in New York City and living and working in Germany, he says, “the call of the Berkshires was loud enough” to bring him back, where he jumped right into work, entrepreneurship, and community service (he is a Rotarian and teaches two business classes at the Berkshire Community College’s South County Center).
Part of what Hallig loves about his profession is that he gets to introduce non-natives to that same siren call. He also knows that Berkshire event planners have a distinct advantage. “Just being in the Berkshires is sometimes three quarters of the event,” he explains. With excellent performing spaces and beautiful properties to serve as venues, “we’ve got an embarrassment of riches.”
For weddings in particular Hallig envisions the Berkshires as the perfect destination for New Yorkers and Bostonians. After all, he says, “it’s a straight shot.” But beyond the convenience, Hallig likes to sell the Berkshires based on the region’s “forward-thinking” approach to community-building. For example, “there’s been a ton of interest from clients in the fact that BerkShares even exists. It’s the next level of trying to keep things in the local community.”
Hallig recently became an advisor for BerkShares, Inc.’s Entry to Entrepreneurship course for 14 to 25 year-olds. The course’s unique focus on import replacement caught his attention. “I thought the idea was fascinating. How do we start to make more products here? What makes local products special? With everything that’s going on with the economy, the more local it can be, the more successful and secure. If you know you’re OK, it might not matter if something were to go wrong somewhere else. You see this with the stock market a lot. Something happens in China and all-of-a-sudden the stock market is falling 200 or 300 points and you didn’t have anything to do with it – something that happens 1,000 miles away. It’s great to be able to insulate a little bit against some of those economic issues that might,” he reconsiders, “that will arise.”
Hallig has an especially close connection to the five BerkShare bill. The Morgan Bulkeley Jr. painting that graces the back of the note is set in Mount Washington. In fact, he says “it’s the view from my mother’s living room!” Though his usual BerkShares policy is to keep them circulating he sometimes can’t help himself, “When friends visit I always give them a five BerkShare note to take home.”
