Washington Design Center Hall of Fame Gala

This past Thursday night was the opening Black Tie Gala for the Washington Design Center's 2010 Design House sponsored by Elle Decor Magazine.  Dave & I decided to go and were so excited... until I tried on my dress options 2 hours before we were supposed to leave.  eeeeeeeeeek  not good.  You would have thought I would have been a little more prepared but it's fly-by-the-seat-of-our-pants-time at our house these days and it really just slipped my mind.  I also don't have a full-length mirror right now (it helps the post pregnancy self-esteem... no actually we just keep forgetting we need one ;) so I couldn't tell what I looked like in a dress and my mom snapped a picture to show me.  (A very diplomatic/ honest move.)  And when I saw the pic, I knew we had to high-tail it to Tyson's (our mall).  So to Tyson's we went with Dave in his tux, us sprinting around like lunatics with only 50 minutes to find a dress.  I went all over but eventually I found a dress- and the ppl at Nordstroms were so sweet as always.  (This is no joke-  ever since high school I have these nightmares every so often that I'm off to homecoming or prom and I am dress shopping and I don't have anything to wear and I'm late or miss the dance.  Well, this was my nightmare come to life and it was not really nightmarish at all...  just kind of ridiculous.)  I wore the dress out and people laughed at us as we sprinted through the mall- me in a floor-length gown with flip-flops...  ruinging any chance of a good hair day.  When we finally got there we saw lots of friendly faces & also met some new ones: 

{ Textile Designer Bryant Archie, me & my friend Michele Ginnerty of My Notting Hill} 

{New friend Nicole Qualls of Elle Decor.  We're kindred spirits- do you see how she loves the monkey?!}

{monkeys all over the showhouse!}

{Bryant, me, my husband, fellow-shelter-designer Raji Rhadhakrishnan and her husband}

photo by Michele Ginnerty via My Notting Hill

{Dave & superstar advertising director Matthew Talomie from Elle Decor  ...We love Elle Decor  and were so happy they came down to DC!!}

{ me with friend/designer Rachel James, and Kathleen Litchfield}

I was a very bad blogger (as usual at any events) and spent more time having fun than taking pictures, so I missed a lot of great new friends in the photos including Sherry from Elle Decor (Nicoles's mother- what an awesome family they are!!!) and  sweet/fun-local-designers Sally Steponkus, Heather Safferstone, Barbara Franceski, Andrea Hickman, and builder John Petro.

I did get this photo of Kelley Proxmire in her gorgeous turquoise accented foyer:

{She matched her room- how perfect?!}

{ Chandy with honeycomb beeswax shades..  LOVE}

{And of course I loved the accents in he garden room}

...But then the music got to us and dancing ensued and the camera was forgotten.  ah vell.

If you're interested in seeing all of the rooms, check out this article in The Washington Post or go to the Design Center to see them in person!  Thanks to the Design Center and Elle Decor for an amazing night!!

xoxo,

lauren

ps- we went out afterwards and people thought we'd just gotten married!! of course dave insisted it was true as he showed them photos of our 5 month old and 2 year old.