WOW! The Belle of the Ball event was AMAZING! If I had to describe it in word I would have to say EMPOWERING. As I'm walking onto campus of Orange Coast College, who by the way graciously hosted the event (OCC Rocks!), I'm side by side with a group of high school girls excited as can be. Talking about how pretty they're going to look and hoping to find a pretty dress. I get to the registration table and sign in, get my badge and walk in. There were racks and racks of beautiful dresses, wall to wall shoes some new and others gently used, tables of jewelry accessories some donated by Cookie Lee, and MANY make up stations by Classic Glamour Dolls OH MY! Definitely a girl's dream come true. As I'm standing by Ana Vergara, CEO of Classic Glamour Dolls waiting for this show to begin OH yeah I almost forgot there were approximately 350 girls and 100 volunteers so you can imagine how busy and fast everything was going. I was asked to help out as a girl's personal shopper (girls weren't allowed in the (workshop #1) dress area without their very own personal shopper and rightfully so I mean they were there to be treated like Belle's of the Ball.) Of course I didn't hesitate, as I approached the dress area, an event volunteer paired me with a high school senior who was there by herself. I introduced myself and asked her what kind or color dress she had in mind. She wanted a pink one then she said actually any color will be just as nice then she asked me what type of dress I would pick, so I told her I would pick a dress that will make me feel comfortable but most importantly that will make me feel like Cinderella. As I'm helping her find a dress she tells me that before I got there she felt lost not knowing what to do or where to go and she was happy I was there of course I melted... As I helped her select at least 5 dresses, one of them being my absolute favorite a yellow long princess like strapless dress with criss cross ribbons on the back, she headed towards the makeshift dressing rooms. Unfortunately all the personal shoppers had to wait out in the dress area as our paired up girl tried on their dresses. After 20 minutes I heard another announcement telling us our girls went over to shoes in order to get the flow moving. As I walked into shoes I see my girl standing in the middle of the room looking lost but as soon as she saw me I saw the biggest smile ever. She showed me her dress, she picked the yellow with silver specks long princess looking dress (my favorite one!!) I asked her what size shoes she wore she tells me a 7.5 I headed towards that section looking for the perfect pair of shoes to match her yellow princess looking dress. I found 2 pairs sadly neither fit so I went to the size 8 table and I found a PERFECT pair of pewter color strappy heals, she tried them on and BINGO THE PERFECT FIT! Now we found her perfect dress and perfect shoes now to the accessory tables! Each girl was allowed to pick 2 pieces of jewelry and a handbag. We approached the handbag table and I got a glimpse of the cutest hand clutch, it was a perfect match, so I grabbed it. It was the same color as her shoes. We have 10 more minutes left to find her jewelry before her group goes to the next station MAKE UP OH YEAH BABY! (Workshop #2) Once again I find the perfect pieces of jewelry, a pair of silver dainty solid hoop earrings with crystals and a silver link necklace with a pretty dragonfly encrusted in diamonds. WHOO HOO HER PROM OUTFIT IS COMPLETE! Now on to the MAKE UP STATION, although there were at least 40 make up artist I wanted my friend Ana Vergara CEO of Classic Glamour Dolls to do my girl's make up, Ana did an AMAZING job she applied her make up to match her dress giving her an idea how her make up would look with certain colors. Next we're walking to the Self esteem & body image (workshop #3), this workshop was taught by Girls Inc program intern volunteers, this was the most empowering one of them all and most definitely my favorite (aside from the Make up workshop of course). Did you know that 99.9% of celebrities get photo shopped on advertisements and magazines? That means we as sisters, daughters, nieces, grand daughters, best friends are killing ourselves trying to look like what we see in the magazines because we are led to believe that's how we as 20, 30, 40 year olds should look like, I WAS APPALLED. This great You Tube clip called (DOVE EVOLUTION) was shown on the deception that occurs everywhere from fashion photographer editors. It is because of them that women are starving themselves to look skinny, getting plastic surgery to look younger, etc all because photo editors and the industry are using photo shop to distort perfect natural images of perfectly natural looking women to make them look how THEY perceive as beautiful. Do you know what the youngest age girls are worrying about their weight and body image....BETWEEN 5-6 YEARS OLD! This needs to stop, magazines need to stop distorting what WE know is perfect. Just to see the emotions and expressions from these girls was very worthwhile to see . This event was an AMAZING experience and one I will never forget. It EMPOWERED me to love and embrace who I am and made me feel like I could make a difference in a girls life! Until the next Belle of the Ball, that's all folks! Oops I almost forgot EVERY GIRL THERE LOVED MY HAIR ACCESSORIES!! By the end of the event every girl was wearing my handcrafted vintage inspired hair ribbon by Simply Vintage by Santana Rose
*Simply Vintage by Santanarose*
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