Leaves are falling and the weather is getting colder, but it's a hot time of year to talk about weddings.

The Taunton Daily Gazette did so recently in a big way with a front page story that takes a look the local bridal industry.

"For the news front, we explored the history and current presence of the bridal industry in Taunton, using a staff photo from one of the downtown bridal shops as the source for a photo illustration accompanying the story," said Emily D., special sections editor and copy editor.

The featurey package is also as a primer of sorts to get interested readers to a related story in the Sunday Living section and to a special section inside — Bristol County Brides — included with the Sunday edition.

Yep, related stories in three sections of the Sunday edition of the Taunton Daily Gazette.

That no doubt took some look-ahead planning with the talented editors at the Gazette. When asked, the modest bunch kept passing credit to another colleague.

"You can give just about all the credit to ... Emely D.," said Rory Schuler, city editor.

"Rory and Lisa (Stratton, executive editor) definitely deserve the credit for jumpstarting the project," said Emily D.

"Although I helped coordinate on the planning end, and Lisa helped get the ball rolling by suggesting we take this thing across sections), this was really Emely’s project," Schuler said. "Sort of a merger of her two posts here at the Gazette."

You all deserve pats on the back for the effort. Talk about camaraderie and teamwork, huh?

Ok, let's take a look at the Sunday Living section.

"For this Sunday's front and Lifestyles pages, we wanted our coverage to tie into the 'Bristol County Bride' special section publishing the same day," Emily D. said. "For the Lifestyles page, we continued the theme with several feature stories, using submitted photos as the art."

The section front includes two more stories related to a couple's big day — getting there in style and a story on a local bridal shop. Nicely done, especially using reader-submitted art

I'd suggest, though, that another promotion to the bridal special section be includes somewhere in this package in much the same way as it appeared on the front page. Newspapers cannot promote their content enough.

Ok, now lets look at Bristol County Brides.

Love the magazine-style cover. Good photo selection and elegant type treatments.

Wanna take a peak inside? Thought so.

"The special section included a "Gallery of Local Brides" composed of photos readers submitted in response to a web/in-paper callout we ran for several weeks prior to the creation of the section," Emily D. said.

Here are a few inside pages with wedding photo from readers. By the way, what a great reader callout idea, huh? What happy couple doesn't want to share photos of their special day for all to see?

here's a look at those inside pages. Here's the content page with a large refer to the reader photos inside:

Here are two inside pages with readers' photos:

Here are a couple more inside pages. This first one includes the cover story on choosing the right color for your wedding. The second includes a story on dresses.

Here's more from Schuler and the early thinking about the special section:

"Just two weeks ago, we realized we had a special section with too few pages, and 16 submissions from the public (up from two or three last year). Faced with either leaving some submissions on the cutting room floor, and disappointing those readers who took the time to submit, or finding a new approach, we opted for the latter.

"This could have easily been just a throw-away section, rushed to completion and sent off to the presses. Despite being down two copy editors, Emely stepped up (as usual) and went above and beyond. She’s one of just three news editors – with one on vacation, we were down to two last week. And she still helped us survive our seven-day production schedule."

Kudos to all involved. Great job!

Do you have a project you'd like to share? Send me your pdfs along with names and titles of all involved and some comments on how the project was conceived and executed.

Joe Greco is corporate design director for GateHouse Media.
Contact him at jgreco@gatehousemedia.com.