Party Foul

This is the huge plant I took from the event. Jody loves it!

The Hip Hostess event started out innocently enough. Passed appetizers, chi-chi Chambord cocktails and a cool, fashionable crowd. It was a very classy, chic event, not to mention the decorations that Courtney and her crew worked on were amazing. In fact, they did such a good job on the decorations that the crowd got a bit over-eager when the Hip Hostess muttered the "F" word at the end of her presentation: FREE.

Let's start from the beginning. Jenny and I met up with Katie, Stephanie, Katharine and Karen (who showed up a bit later) at the event. Jenny, Katie, Katharine, Courtney and I all lived in a house off-campus together our senior year of college, and this was one of the first times since then that we've all been together, so that was cool. Plus, this was the first time I've seen Stephanie since she got engaged so there was plenty to celebrate last night.

After plenty of mingling, munching and drinking, the Hip Hostess, Jen, started her presentation. She offered a ton of fun tips on everything from centerpieces to tablescapes. She's so creative and made it all look so easy. After Jen's presentation Brown-Forman's Chief Entertaining Officer offered up Chambord drink recipes (raspberry cheesecake martini anyone?). Finally, Jen came back, thanked everyone for coming and told the crowd that since we were at the last event of the evening, we could take home the centerpieces on the tables for free. That's when things got weird...

I swear, people went nuts. They started grabbing centerpieces...and then everything else they could get their hands on! One shady lady was walking around with two reusable shopping bags grabbing whatever she could. We saw her shove about four serving platers from the demonstration into her bag. Another girl ran up and took a latern...a latern that's candle was still lit. It was crazy...This nice, refined crowd turned into a bunch of swag-thirsty vultures.

Our whole table was watching this all go down in disbelief asking Courtney, is this okay? (The answer was yes, it's fine.)

Then suddenly we joined them. When a sweet, little woman came over to our table and asked if anyone had claimed our centerpiece yet, I immediately said yup, it's ours. Then Jenny grabbed a tropical plant she'd been eyeing all night, which inspired me to drag a big ol' tree plant over to our table...and then Jenny grabbed a similar looking tree plant to match mine! Jenny and I had to guard our goods from all the sticky fingers, but we held strong! Katharine was upset that we spent too much time judging the vultures rather than joining them so she didn't have a chance to grab anything...but in the end she scored our centerpiece so hopefully that made her happy.

Luckily, I drove last night, so Jenny and Karen waited outside the Ivy Room while I pulled the car around to haul off our loot. Totally embarassing. I was cracking up in the parking garage when I saw at least three other carloads of people putting plants, platters, etc. from the event into their cars.

I mean, we were just supposed to get a cute little coconut cup with nail polish and a shot glass inside as a thanks-for-coming favor--and there we were driving off with a freakin' tropical forest in my trunk.

Honestly, it was pretty hilarious. People (myself included, apparently) will do some crazy things for free stuff.