My VERY FIRST Gala!!!

Hi, Everyone!!! Sorry for the long long absence from the blog, but as many of you know, I was in CA for nearly the last three weeks putting the final touches on my very first Gala for my work. I've helped out with plenty of events in the past, but this was my very first Gala that was 100% under my control...which was great...but that also meant it was 100% on my shoulders whether the event would be a huge success or a huge failure! AND I'm so happy to report it was a great success!! Here's a little play-by-play of the day-of:

Here's the St. Regis ballroom being prepped and set for the big night:


More prepping, this is the head table where honorees Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Andy Garcia were sat:


People starting to file into the general reception which was held under a beautiful tent on the terrace of the St. Regis overlooking the San Francisco sky:


The AMAZING latin/afro jazz band we had play during the reception...if you look closely there's a special guest with them on stage that many of you might recognize:


WOW...the tent packed with people towards the end of the reception:


The beautiful St. Regis ballroom, set and ready to go...the program starts:


Okay, so the next couple pics get a little fuzzy...when you're coordinating and running the event, you sit in the very back of the room so you can enter and exit as you please, which proves less distracting when you're seated in the back BUT equals poor photos! Here our President is handing off the award to Andy Garcia for his work in championing for the principles of freedom through his personally directed films about his homeland, Cuba. I can't even begin to tell you how AMAZING and MOVING Andy's speech was! I'll try and send a link once the video is up on our website of the event so you can all watch for yourselves because I can't even attempt to describe it and do it justice:


Next up was Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who is quite possibly the cutest and most sincere person I've ever met. He also gave an amazingly inspirational speech, so I'll definitely try to get a link to the video up soon!! Note how tiny he is behind the podium, he may be small but packs a mighty message:


All in all, it was truly a magical night - Thank you to everyone for all their encouragement over these last few months! I know I couldn't have done it without the prayers and notes of encouragement along the way:) Stay tuned for more blog posts...right after the event, Ty took me and my tired self to Monterey/Carmel, CA for some much needed R&R. We have a ton of pictures so I'll be sharing that soon!