What happens at Bash… is All Recapped Here!

Last Spring, when the Sweet Book Tour was in full swing and I was trav­el­ing quite a bit, I attend­ed a con­fer­ence where I had the chance to final­ly meet so many par­ty girls that I had befriend­ed on-line in per­son! One of those atten­dees was Michelle Burt from Mad­dy­cakes Muse, who is not only amaz­ing­ly tal­ent­ed {and a retired Marine!}, but incred­i­bly fun and deter­mined. As sev­er­al of us dis­cussed the need for a con­fer­ence geared specif­i­cal­ly towards the par­ty indus­try, we could see Michelle’s wheels begin to turn and there was no doubt in any of our minds that she was the one with the exper­tise and deter­mi­na­tion to pull it off. Fast for­ward to Jan­u­ary 2015, less than a year from when the idea was born, and I have just returned from the inau­gur­al par­ty con­fer­ence called BASH ~ an amal­ga­ma­tion of enter­tain­ing and lifestyle blog­gers, entre­pre­neurs and event plan­ners look­ing to net­work, learn, meet and devel­op rela­tion­ships with spon­sors and, of course, par-tay!

Set in beau­ti­ful Phoenix, AZ at the charm­ing Wig­wam Resort, it was tru­ly such an incred­i­ble expe­ri­ence that is prac­ti­cal­ly impos­si­ble to put into words. From the awe-inspir­ing keynote speak­ers Amy Atlas and Eddie Ross to encour­ag­ing and uplift­ing talks from from the likes of Jen­nifer at Host­ess with the Most­ess, Kim from TomKat Stu­dio, and Loralee from Loralee Lewis {just to name a few!} to attend­ing edu­ca­tion­al class­es and bond­ing with so many of my par­ty girls, it was such a spe­cial, unique and life-chang­ing expe­ri­ence that I will val­ue for­ev­er. I tru­ly appre­ci­at­ed the oppor­tu­ni­ty to meet and con­nect with spon­sors, includ­ing the mar­velous Wilton team. Not only was I inspired by each and every pre­sen­ter and speak­er I had the absolute plea­sure of hear­ing and learn­ing from at BASH, I was also so for­tu­nate and hon­ored to be a speak­er and have taught a class on book pub­lish­ing, along­side my friends Mindy from Cre­ative Juice and Ale­jan­dra of The Marsh­mal­low Stu­dio!

One of the most valu­able expe­ri­ences at con­fer­ences is cen­tered around the peo­ple you meet, bond and forge a rela­tion­ship with and BASH most def­i­nite­ly did not dis­ap­point in this are­na! My room­mates Mindy {Cre­ative Juice}, Bethany {Aun­tie Bea’s Bak­ery}, Don­na {Swish Print­a­bles} and Kirstin {Kojo Designs} are not only incred­i­bly sweet and fun, but they are so cre­ative and tal­ent­ed!!! I’m so grate­ful for the adorable and thought­ful roomie gifts they gave me, all their sup­port through­out the con­fer­ence and our fun times.

I had a fab time meet­ing the amaz­ing Amy {Amy Atlas} and Kim {TomKat Stu­dio} and soak­ing up their wis­dom ~ it’s passed on through osmo­sis, right?! Jen­ny {Jen­ny Cook­ies} and I have chat­ted and worked togeth­er for awhile now, but had nev­er met in per­son until the con­fer­ence and she was just as sweet and gor­geous as I expect­ed! Not only are Eddie and Jaithan {Eddie Ross} jaw-drop­ping­ly tal­ent­ed, but they are incred­i­bly kind and an absolute hoot! I had also heard so much about Ali­son {The Ali­son Show} and she is as fun, orig­i­nal and awe­some as promised! And final­ly, lis­ten­ing to Chris {Cel­e­bra­tions at Home}, Jen {HWTM} and Kim {The Cel­e­bra­tion Shoppe} was super infor­ma­tive and infor­ma­tion­al and it was such a great oppor­tu­ni­ty to catch up with them and let them know just how much I have appre­ci­at­ed their sup­port through­out the years! It’s such a hum­bling expe­ri­ence to meet and speak with the women {and men!} who are not only icons in your indus­try, but who have in one way or anoth­er, helped you along the way. What an invalu­able oppor­tu­ni­ty it is to be able to say thank you… or rather, MERCI!!!

I’m proud to say that these stun­ning BASH cook­ies were made my roomie, Bethany {Aun­tie Bea’s Bak­ery} ~ gor­geous AND deli­cious… just like Bethany her­self! And that mar­velous ARIZONA craft table was styled by the dynam­ic duo of Rebec­ca and Shan­non {Petite Par­ty Stu­dio} for the open­ing night cel­e­bra­tion. These ladies are absolute­ly fab… and hilar­i­ous! I was beyond excit­ed to final­ly see my loves Tonya {Soirée Event Design} and Lin­di {Love the Day} again and give them a much antic­i­pat­ed soul-sista hug! And as you can see, a bunch of us were so warm­ly wel­comed by Kim and her staff at the her beau­ti­ful and brand-spankin’ TomKat Stu­dio STORE!

I real­ly tried to take every sin­gle moment in, from singing karaoke Livin’ on a Prayer with my girls {which includ­ed Amy Atlas, of course!} to chat­tin’ it up with SO MANY friends, old and new, to admir­ing all the unbe­liev­able tables styled by atten­dees for the table­top com­pe­ti­tion, includ­ing my roomie, Don­na’s daz­zling Sin­gin’ in the Rain table, among many oth­ers that were tru­ly works of art. I took it ALL in… so much so that I feel like I bare­ly have any pic­tures that tru­ly cap­ture the entire expe­ri­ence. I wish I could tag every sin­gle per­son with whom I con­nect­ed because every sin­gle one was ah-maz­ing!!! If you want to see more, I strong­ly sug­gest you check out #BashConf15 on Instagram!

A spe­cial shout out goes to the entire BASH team that worked tire­less­ly to put this incred­i­ble con­fer­ence togeth­er. I mean, they tru­ly worked their behinds off to exe­cute the event so seam­less­ly. And once again, mer­ci beau­coup to Michelle for hav­ing the vision and per­se­ver­ance to bring soooooo many of us togeth­er to ulti­mate­ly pro­mote the need to sup­port one anoth­er. And yes, I bawled at Michelle’s clos­ing speech. ♥

Will I be see­ing you at BASH Con­fer­ence 2016?!

 

Merci Beaucoup!

This page may con­tain affil­i­ate links. For more infor­ma­tion, please read my Terms & Dis­clo­sure policy.