#NWmeet

After so many months of planning, #NWmeet has been and gone; I won't miss waiting for Monday to roll around to see if anyone's replied to my emails, but I'll miss the excitement of it all. Planning such a massive thing and doing it with my girlfriend was so much fun, and I couldn't be more proud of how it all turned out. The venue was perfect, everyone was impressed with the goody bags and most importantly we raised over £100 for The Recovery Bag Project.

Gold backdrop // Meditation room // Rooftop garden

I was at The Secret Warehouse by 9am and it was even better than I remembered it to be - possibly because this time, Martha the French Bulldog was there too. I lit the big Jo Malone candle on the table and got to work setting up the raffle & laying out all the food (big thanks to Propercorn, Primal Pantry and Just Bee Drinks for providing just some of the day's sustenance). Sam arrived with Caitlin in tow, and we finished everything else together - taking a break to bask in the sunshine on the rooftop garden, of course.

The INSTAGRAM cut out was so much fun

We had a kissing wall with W7 Full Colour lipsticks for everyone which looked SO cute, and I think all the bloggers really enjoyed getting involved with that. Plenty of gals guessed how many midget gems were in the jar, and the top four closest guessers who knew that was a word each won a gorgeous dress from Jones & Jones. One of the main highlights for me was our Disney Couture competition - everyone took a number on their way in, and those with a corresponding number won a piece of Disney themed jewellery. So fetch.

Laura with her Cloud Nine prize // Holly with her Jones & Jones dress

// Our amazing raffle prizes

Our raffle went down a storm I have to say - we had such amazing prizes from festival tickets to handbags, personalised marshmallows to fancy pants nail varnish. In the end, everyone won a prize so be sure to keep an eye on the #NWmeet hashtag to see reviews of what people brought home with them. Sam and I vlogged the day too, and the video should be up this week so keep your peepers peeled.

Caitlin // Hannah // Jem

There was a rooftop garden with a fake cherry blossom tree and it caught the sun all day; there were carnival lights on the wall (as well as in the goody bags); there was a flipping meditation room - I could go on, but honestly words can't do justice to how amazing The Secret Warehouse is! If you ever get the chance to go to an event there, don't pass up the opportunity because it's an incredible place, even if it is sandwiched between a brewery and a steelworks...

We had a skincare demo from the gorgeous Megan & Martin from LUSH which was absolutely fab, even if I did get a bit of face mask in my nostril when I was sniffing it... And later on, the lovely Rebecca & Sam (husband and wife duo behind the Liverpool-based jewellery company This Material Culture) brought along some of their fab pieces, giving us a whole spontaneous speech about how to work with brands which was super informative and just rly good.

I have so much I want to say about the day, but mainly just THANK YOU. Thank you to everyone who congratulated us on the event, thank you to everyone who bought a raffle ticket, thank you to everyone for being so lovely to everyone else. Thank you to Martha for being such a precious angel pup, thank you to Caitlin for all your help, thank you to Sam for being you. I'm so proud of myself and Sam for everything we achieved and how smoothly it ran in the end - despite me leaving Sam's dress on the bus on Friday morning.

A massive thank you to all our brands - a few of who are mentioned above. We also had Tarte Cosmetics, Cloud Nine Hair, LUSH, Oribe, Smith&Cult, Bee Good, The Good Life Festival, Rocket&Rye, Vendula, Alpha H, Cath Kidston, Messie Mat, Little O and so many more.