lavish! Un-conference: Days 2 &3

Ok, so I literally never got up.  That doggone bed was so fabulous that I slept right through my alarm and my eyes flew open at 7:57am.  I was upset because the Opening Remarks were to take place at 8am and I didn’t want to miss a second of this event.  I hustled up and made it downstairs in time to see Shameeka be presented with a gift from the Macy’s Heart of Haiti initiative, and to hear her make a very special announcement: my homecook shero, Ree aka The Pioneer Woman, was sad that she wasn’t able to attend the conference and sent a gift to giveaway in her absence.  The prize was one of those fancy, schmancy Nikon cameras! She rocks.

Next up was my buddy, James Andrews, who challenged us bloggers to be the curators of our community and serve as tour guides to show brands the ins and outs of our social media sphere. Prolific and passionate as always.  Then it was off to the breakout sessions.  I knew I was gonna have a problem when I first saw her agenda; I genuinely wanted to attend EVERY.SINGLE.PANEL. And if you were following my tweets this weekend, you know that I came pretty damn close.  I was session-hopping like the Dickens because I wanted to absorb every piece that I could. I know it sounds over-the-top, but this event was a dream come true for me. At my core, I am a Lifestyle Blogger, and each topic appealed to me in some way.  Not to mention that her speaker roster was ridic. Some highlights of the sessions:

• Food Styling with Running with Tweezers and Honey & Jam
• Image IS Everything: Building A Brand with Andrea of Life Branded. This session was fantastic. She gave us a lot of good food for thought wrt walking out our brand image. And her personal style? VICIOUS.
• The Reality of Food TV {Y’all. Herb Mesa‘s story blew me away. He has been through so much and is so personable and full of life}
• The session that I spoke at alongside Funkidiva Girl and Life is Lemonade.  The audience was lively and engaged and we had a great time getting down to the bottom of the issue and helping other bloggers refine their taglines.

In line with my FFF philosophy for 2011, I opted to meet up with my law school girlfriends that I rarely get a chance to see!  After a tortuous cab ride (it was the cabbie’s third day on the job and I ended up directing him using Google Maps on my phone), I made it to my friend’s place and we went to Two Urban Licks for dinner.  The food, atmosphere and most of all, the company, was entertaining and refreshing. Boy did we laugh. By the time I made it back to the hotel and crawled into The Bed, it was after 2am. {And  heard the lavish! Rue Mag + HGTV Party was off.the.charts!}

The Gals

Waking up on Sunday was tough, but I made it down in time for Julia Reed’s remarks about her time at Vogue and her journey to WOW and now Taigan.  My favorite session of the morning was SPILL IT: All My Best Blogging Tricks Of The Trade featuring the ladies behind DesignBlahg &  Sketch42Blog. This was the real deal with tangible advice and valuable information. And they were hilarious too.

The conference wrapped up with heartfelt words form Shameeka; tons of giveaways (I won the Merben mohair throw!), cupcakes, and a Farewell Toast given by yours truly on behalf of Blogalicious.

Krystal Grant and Me

I’ve been trying to come up with one word to describe the conference and it’s just so hard. I’ve settled on…sumptuous. A bizarre word for a (un)conference, I know. But I literally wanted to relish and drink in the event’s people, content, aesthetics and, energy and warmth.

Oh and that bed.

Hats off to The Broke Socialite.  From the sessions to the venue to the parties to the swag, the inaugural lavish! was phenomenal.