Celebrating two years of #everydaystyle with Styling You

Last weekend, Peta and I headed to Brisbane to attend a beautiful lunch hosted by Nikki of Styling You to celebrate two whole years of the #everydaystyle hashtag she created. Yep, hashtags have birthdays, and they know how to party!

The gorgeous #everydaystylers; image from @stylingyou instagram

Honestly, blogger events and meetups are usually pretty awkward for me. And even more so when it's stylish people like fashion Instagrammers. *insert hand-wringing and excuse-making here* Unless I know someone really well to latch on to, it's typically just me standing in the corner near the food.

When I received the invitation from Nikki, the very first thing I did was text Peta and hit her up. I was all 'Did you get invited? Are you going? Are we going? What are we wearing?' and she was very casual and 'Yeah, yeah, yeah, I dunno'. This is because my bestie is now what I like to call a big deal. She was Nikki's gorgeous model for the last two Styling You shop seasons, and hence had her face plastered all over the Australian style interwebs. I bask in her reflected glory.

Peta just babin' it up on the Styling You shop

Nikki had arranged for the event to be held on the Hilton Pool Deck right in the middle of Brisbane City, and oh my, it was perfect for a bunch of blinged-up ladies enjoying champagne and chit chat on a stinking hot late November day. There were fans and a cool breeze from across the pool, and we were handed a chilled champers the minute we entered. Nikki's sponsor Olympus generously put on the lovely spread of food and drinks, and there was a lot of ooh-ing and aah-ing over the new Olympus selfie camera. 

After a nice mingle getting to know the folk that we hadn't previously met and catching up with old friends, we were seated at an enormous table, with placecards featuring our own favourite #everydaystyle Instagram photos, and lovely gifts from Louenhide - my red journal and cream clutch are going to be well-used, I'm sure.

I'll always love sitting down to a meal and finding goodies at my place setting. Always.

Thanks Louenhide. My love for you runs deep.

After a light lunch, Nikki introduced Simone. A former international model (hanging on the catwalk with the likes of Naomi Campbell and Cindy Crawford no less!), Simone got us all up and giggling, sharing her top tips for posing in outfit photos. I learned a lot, and think I should probably focus a little on having 'softer' hands in photos, instead of my usual Cancerian claws!

I wore a Seed off-shoulder dress, Witchery wedges (old - similar here), Samantha Wills Bohemian Bardot ring, and Adorne necklace (old - similar here)

The fun didn't end there, Nikki and her assistant Alisha had pulled together an amazing table chock-full of lucky door prizes and I won a lovely hair and makeup transformation from a well-known Brisbane makeup artist who comes out to your home, Bruce Rehbein. I was looking forward to using this, but after a little thought, I decided to offer it up in a swap to the other recipients, as I'm just not getting to Brisbane as much as I'd like these days. Fellow Coastie, Bev of Iris May Style had won a sunshiny yellow Louenhide bag-in-a-bag that I was swooning over, and she quite fancied getting her hair and makeup done for her daughter's upcoming law degree graduation, so swapsies worked out perfectly!

The gorgeous yellow/biscuit Sydney Louenhide that now has pride of place in my Louenhide collection.

Nikki's assistant Alisha was there to help out, and we had two other awesome attendees. Helen of Rhubarb snapping posed and candid photos, as well as the oh-so-talented Jakomina who is such a skillful fashion illustrator!

Jakomina's sweet watercolour fashion sketch of me is stunning, I'm definitely framing this baby!

Find her website here 

It was great to get the chance to speak to women who I've connected with previously online, and also to meet and follow new people.  Of course, we all took a million pictures with the silver STYLE balloons before heading downstairs to the Hilton Bar to continue our chats. Everyone was so well-dressed, pulling out some #notsoeverydaystyle glamour for the event! (And I'm pleased to see that kaftans as daywear are still a thing. Big fan.)

It was a really fun afternoon and I'm so pleased we both headed down to Brisbane for it! Peta and I made a bit of a weekend of it, staying in the city that evening, heading for dinner at Southbank and then enjoying the morning by the river the next day; so I'll share all those photos in the next blog post - here!

The gorgeous #everydaystylers*; image from @stylingyou instagram

Thank you very much to Nikki and the Styling You team, I'm so pleased to have been a little part of the celebrations of the #everydaystyle hashtag which has been such a hit online. Thanks also to Nikki's sponsors and brand supporters who contributed to the occasions. I've met such awesome-sauce women through #everydaystyle and felt honoured to be invited.

Have you met people in the 'real' world after meeting online through social media such as blogs, Instagram, Facebook, etc? How did it go down? Are you besties now?

*I don't want to single people out, but there were some key kids that I was stoked to see at the #everydaystyle party. @traineemama (duh),  @what_brooke_wore,  @mrs.lauren.roney,  @ilovethatskirt,  @sisterinstyle,  @retailgenie,  @kirstyashestyle in the most amazing Mister Zimi set,  @style_scouting_,  @istyl,  @styleloving2,  @loveface_beauty, and of course @stylingyou (obvs).

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