In support of the 53rd Annual CMA Awards, Stephanie and Christina flew down to Nashville to attend and cover the show and all of the week’s festivities live from Nashville. Check out snaps and highlights from the trip on Instagram here. As always, we flew down on Southwest Airlines, making it easy to bring all of our luggage down since they offer two free checked bags. After a smooth flight, we headed directly to grab lunch with our friends at UMG and see their spacious beautiful new office on 2nd ave.

After lunch, we went to our apartment at the brand new Niido Powered by Air BNB. Their prime location (steps away from Bridgestone Arena where the awards were set to take place) was key for us New Yorkers, making their way to meetings and events the entire week.

Niido Nashville Powered by Air BNB

After a delicious dinner at Bartaco in 12South, we headed back to our place where Kelsey from GoldenGlamm met us and her mobile spray tan kit, to help us get that perfect award show glow. The next morning we headed to Jon Alan Salons in The Gulch for incredible blowouts. Right from there we headed to The CMA Theater at The Country Music Hall of Fame for the CMT Next Women of Country event highlighting a bunch of new, fabulous women in the country genre. For more about that event click here. 

Before heading out for the night, we made sure to hydrate thanks to Liquid IV and slap on our Rally Patches to help us through the next two nights of being out late in Music City. Next up, we headed to the Cumulus Campus to sit with our friend, Nash Nights Live and With Elaina host Elaina D. Smith to be featured on an episode of her podcast, Breaking Thru with Elaina. For more about our honest and open conversation on the podcast, click here to listen.

After a quick stop at LA Jackson, the rooftop bar located in the Thompson Hotel to catch up with our friends at Monument Records, we went to the Broken Bow Records/BMG Pre-Party at Cambria which featured performances from so many of their insanely talented artists like King Calaway, Lindsay Ell, Jimmie Allen, LOCASH, Jason Aldean and many more.

Closing out the night, we went to celebrate our Woman of the Month, Nicolle Galyon after she took home the BMI Songwriter of the Year award. This lowkey house party was catered by Sonic, had milkshakes ready for the attendees when they walked in the door and even had a ‘check your shoes’ station where you could swap out those uncomfortable heels for the coziest, Barefoot Dreams socks.  After dancing to Spice Girls and taking way too many photo booth pictures, we headed back to our place to get a good night’s sleep before the big show day.

Wednesday morning we headed to The Sutler to catch three of Warner Music Nashville’s brightest rising talents, Ingrid Andress, Trea Landon, and Gabby Barrett. The three performed ‘in the round’ style, taking turns talking about the songs that they had written before performing them acoustically.

Then it was back to our place to get ready for the night ahead. Thanks to Rent the Runway, Stephanie and I literally were sparkling, rocking gorgeous dresses that we had rented from the convenience of our homes back in New York.  We walked down the block and grabbed our media passes from Will Call, realizing that we had AMAZING seats. A huge thank you to everyone at the Country Music Association for making our very first award show, truly memorable. The ushers escorted us to THE FIRST ROW of the bowl, the first row up from the floor. Our excitement was at an all-time high.

The award show did not disappoint. As a women-run business, being able to attend the night where the award show was dedicated to honoring the women of the genre was inspiring. As soon as the opening number, a tribute to females of the past and present started, we knew we were in for an epic night. From seeing some of our favorite artists win awards, (Old Dominion for Vocal Group of the Year) and (Maren Morris for Album of the Year) to watching outstanding performances, we were in country music heaven. Check out a full recap of the spectacular show here.

Immediately following the broadcast, we headed to the Sony After Party, where we got to catch up with a ton of our friends in the industry as well as Sony Music Nashville’s greatest artists. They even had Dry Bar and Sephora stations so award goers could freshen up their looks. We ended our award show week at Big Machine Labels after-party.

After a quick stop to change, we headed to the airport for an early morning Southwest flight, which proved to be a great decision, we each had an entire row to ourselves.

Thank you to each of the teams that invited us and welcomed us with open arms this past week, making Nashville feel even more like our second home and allowing us to experience a one of a kind CMA Awards week.

The 53rd Annual CMA Awards took place Wednesday night at Nashville’s Bridgestone Arena. On a night that celebrated women in country music, Carrie Underwood hosted alongside two female icons in Dolly Parton and Reba McEntire. Garth Brooks was awarded the show’s biggest honor, Entertainer of the Year. Christina and Stephanie were at the awards and witnessed the incredible night of country music.

Blake Shelton won the first award of the night, Single of the Year for “God’s Country”. This single is certified platinum and reached the number one spot in both the US and Canada. It will be featured on his upcoming album, Fully Loaded: God’s Country. His producer and mix engineer, Scott Hendricks and Justin Niebank joined him on stage.

Ashley McBryde has another award to add to her trophy case in her young career as she was presented with the New Artist of the Year. She already has an ACM, two CMTs and now a CMA. “I once had the pleasure of playing a tribute show for Mr. John Prine and the next day he shook my hand and he said ‘you’re good, you’re real good; you’re no Reba, but you’re real good. I cherish those little moments that are truth and guidance from voices that we respect and admire, and I’m thankful for that and for this and for the opportunity to step up.”

2019 continues to be a huge year for Grammy-winning Dan + Shay, as they walked away with another Duo of the Year award. Their most recent self-titled album was a huge success as it was certified Gold and all three singles, “Tequila”, “Speechless” and “All To Myself” hit number one on the charts. The duo announced their headlining Arena Tour for 2020 last month and sold out Madison Square Garden on the first day.

Old Dominion won their second consecutive Vocal Group of the Year. The “One Man Band” performers released their self-titled album last month, hitting number one in its first week. “Back in the day we used to operate under this really strange mantra of self-preservation where any time anything good would happen to us we would look at each other and say ‘this is never going to work anyway’”, front-man, Matt Ramsey joked. “But tonight when I look out and think of all the people that we have had supported us…we should have been saying ‘of course we’re going to make it; of course this is going to work.”

The most nominated artist last night, Maren Morris took home the Album of the Year for her sophomore release, GIRL, a record that promotes women’s strength and equality, fitting the night’s theme. She dedicated the award to her producer, the late busbee.

“I would really remiss if I didn’t mention a huge facet of why this album sounds the way it does and we miss him so dearly. He texted me the morning we got nominated for Album of the Year this year and we were so excited; that’s our friend busbee,” Morris praised with tears in her eyes. “His wife, Jess is here tonight…my heart goes out to you and your beautiful daughters. I hope when they listen to this record or any of the songs he made…they know how amazing their father was.”

Male Vocalist of the Year was given to Luke Combs. 2019 was a huge year for Combs as he has sold out arenas, dominated the country charts and set incredible streaming records. His most recent album What You See Is What You Get, just released this past Friday, is on pace to snare the largest streaming week ever for a country album and is projected to hit number one on the all-genre Billboard 200 chart. Combs also accepted the Song of the Year award alongside co-writers, Wyatt B. Durrette III and Robert Williford for “Beautiful Crazy”. This song also hit number one on the country charts and was certified double platinum.

“This is pretty unbelievable stuff. I remember sitting on my porch when I was a little kid and watching Vince Gill come up here and win the same award,” Combs stated. “Everybody in this room inspires me every day…country music means everything to me.”

The Female Vocalist of the Year was given to Kacey Musgraves, who also has racked up the awards in 2019, the most prestigious one being Album of the Year for her fourth studio album, Golden Hour at the 2019 Grammy Awards. Musgraves also won Music Video of the Year for “Rainbow”. The video was produced by Hannah Lux Davis.

“Words can’t express just how meaningful and truly unbelievable these past couple years have been. But ultimately I just want to say I feel that the female creative spirit, female energy is really needed right now.”  

In a stacked category of artists such as Chris Stapleton, Eric Church, Keith Urban, and Carrie Underwood, Garth Brooks was the winner as he walked out with his seventh Entertainer of the Year award; his third in the past four years. This award ended a memorable night in Nashville.

A few more awards were given before the show as well. Lil Nas X and Billy Ray Cyrus earned the Musical Event of the Year with their smash hit “Old Town Road” and Jenee Fleenor won the Musician of the Year for her expertise on the fiddle. She was the first woman to ever win this award.  

For our exclusive coverage of CMA Awards week in Nashville, head to our Instagram. 

To keep up with the Country Music Association, follow them on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

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