This past Friday was easily one of the best days of my entire life.
And also one of the most trying. I spent almost the entirety of it quite literally running around Chicago with my better half in Sparklecorn Party Planningdom, Her Bad Mother, in an almost cartoonish, flailing panic, attempting to fix into place the final pieces of our party. There were last minute blunders to be sure, and moments when I honestly feared things would fall apart completely — that one of the 50 people that comprised the links that made up the great Sparklecorn Chain of Being would fail, and we’d end up with a less-than-complete version of the vision both Catherine and I had of what Sparklecorn would be. But in the end, we begging, pleaded, and cajoled all involved to come through for us, and lucky for us, they did.
Our dear photographer friend Ryan of Pacing The Panic Room and porch-light pictures was one of those important links, as we flew him in to Chicago with the expressed purpose of documenting the party for posterity. When he arrived on Friday I felt terrible, because I was such a basketcase and so overloaded with all I needed to do before party time that I gave him quite literally no instructions or guidelines whatsoever and simply let him loose with his camera, saying only something to the effect of “Uhh, do whatever you think will be cool… If you need me, I’ll be over here in this corner sobbing quietly. [insert quiet sobbing]”
After the jump is Part One of his photographic documentation of that night — a collection of my personal favorites from all the images he took. They are, I think you’ll agree, FREAKING AMAZING.
Rather than drone on and on with my thoughts about the party, I’d love to hear from those of you who were there about what you experienced, felt, saw, heard, and yes, SMELLED, Friday night. There’s no greater joy for me, as host, to know that we gave people a good time. I think (hope?) we did. LET THE SPARKLECORN REVELRY COMMENCE!
PS: More of Ryan’s AWESOME photos tomorrow! Woot!
PPS: Thanks to all our fabulous sponsors for making every single moment of this possible: bTrendie, Dove, Yahoo!, Six Apart, Templeton Rye (maker of our signature drink, the Vengeful Unicorn), and Federated Media, you light up our lives, you gave us hope to carry on… (And it goes without saying that you fill our nights with song.)
About Tracey Gaughran-Perez
