By now you know that I love hosting theme parties. Usually they coincide with a holiday, but this month I wanted to do something that I had never done before…a masquerade party! After hosting a New Year's Eve party to ring in 2016, I had a lot of friends who were excited about attending the next big event.  I started planning and knew right away that it would be a dance party, high energy and of course a ton of photos would be taken. Those were really my top three requirements.

My New Year's party benefited a local Dallas charity called Champions of Hope, and I knew that I wanted to benefit another worthy cause with the proceeds from the March Masquerade. This party benefited Dallas Life, a homelessness recovery and transition program.

Of course you know music is an important part of any party, so I asked my two favorite DJs if they would spin for the masquerade party. Once guests started arriving and the dance floor started to fill up I knew that the party would go all night and we would be dancing until 2am.

This venue, The door, in Deep Ellum is huge so I had to come up with a way to divide the space and make sure that people were concentrated on the dance floor as opposed to spread out all over the venue. I had an idea to use balloons to delineate the dance floor from the rest of the venue but we ended up changing plans during mid-installation and constructed four columns made from balloons instead. I had a team of friends helping me set up at the venue all day Saturday. One of the most important aspects of hosting a successful party is having a few solid helpers who will be with you no matter what. I'm always so thankful after parties because I have some amazing friends who are willing to help. This party was especially important for me to rely on friends since I only had the use of my left hand! (Read about my snowboarding trip accident.)

One of my favorite aspects of an event is photography, so my friend and talented photographer, Brandon Mikeal, took photos on the dance floor and set up a photo booth for the event. The photo booth photos from that night are some of my favorite from any events that I've ever hosted. My friends are ridiculous!

Towards the end of the night my feet were so tired from dancing all night and I was having so much fun that I put on my Nikes and continued to tear up the dance floor! Thank you to everyone who helped make this event a success! Looking forward to many more dance floors with you all!