Haven Conference in a Word? Amazing!
Awesome. Friends. Fun. Community! I could really use all of these words to describe the Haven conference, which I think I am just recovering from, phew!
I had such a fun time and want to tell you all about it. Are you ready for a brief recap? I’m not! So I decided I’ll do a few posts this week about it and talk all about the sessions, the wonderful people I met, the outstanding swag we received from the sponsors and the Living Room, Haven headquarters. Ready, set, Haven!
I flew in on Wednesday and met up with this amazing lady at the airport. We were like separated sisters, talking non stop for 3 days about everything. Meet Karah from The Space Between.
And now you all know what my armpit looks like 🙂 Sorry I just love the self portrait.
Karah and I traveled from the airport to the hotel together to meet up with a group for dinner at the Cheesecake Factory. Turns out there are two Cheesecake Factory’s and two Crown Plaza Hotels in Atlanta, note to self when you go!
Funny end to the story though, we ended up meeting up with these ladies!
This is Karah from The Space Between, Anna from Directions Not Included, Ange from The Blooming Hydrangea, Lisa from Before Meets After, Andrea from Our Blue Front Door and me.
The first night of the conference was an opening reception. It’s like walking into a room where you have something in common with all 300 people in there. So amazing! We did lots of mingling, business card exchanging and talking blog stuff and life stuff non stop.
There may or may not have been some arm wrestling as we closed out the reception. That’s Kari Anne from Thistlewood Farm and Kerry from HouseTalkN. These two are a riot!
The next morning was when the fun really began! We had a nice welcome from the opening team.
And the main speakers of the panel were John and Sherry from Young House Love. I’m sure you’ve heard of them 🙂 They are like the Oprah’s of home blogging.
Now people often wonder what it’s like to meet “big bloggers” like this in person and I have to say these two are real, genuine, enthusiastic, and boy do they get it. They’re a regular old married couple with a baby and a dog who renovate their home and talk about it on a blog. Just like us, oh except they get about 5 million hits a day. No big deal right? It’s not. Your blog is just as awesome and don’t you forget it!
My favorite quote from Sherry “Everything takes time and content is king.” True, true, true. Persistence is key. They mentioned how some press coverage they received was 5 years after the company originally contacted them. Five years!
And then.. session time! I went to I Like Big blogs, Blogging PR and Advertising.
Here is Myra, Sarah and Rhoda.
The sessions were great, I took tons of notes. This is from Lesli DeVito Painting who sat next to me. What a cute notebook right?
Most of the sessions had handouts too. Bonus.
Later on day one we went to dinner. I mean not a-few-female-bloggers-descend-on-a-restaurant. I mean about 30 of us showed up to a Mexican joint all at the same time and all of a sudden Atlanta is running out of margaritas. Ha!
OK that didn’t really happen. But what did happen was some awesome blogging conversation. I mean these ladies are serious about making their blogs the best it can be.
This is Becky at Organizing Made Fun, (I haven’t met the lady here), Andrea from Our Blue Front Door, (I haven’t yet met the lady here either!), Kelli from Restore Interiors, Jennifer at Jennifer Carroll Designs, Kerri Anne from Thistlewood Farms, Breida at breida with a b., Ange from The Blooming Hydrangea, Carrie from Making Lemonade, Lisa from Before Meets After, Anna from Directions Not Included, (I didn’t meet this lady – tell me who you are!), Karah at The Space Between and Cassie from Primitive and Proper – so far! Tell me if I’m wrong or if you are in this, let me know what you’re wearing!
Here is my awesome roommie Diane from In My Own Style. We had a fun slumber party each night gabbing all about writing, and sponsors and all that blogger jazz. Apparently I’m a lean in for the photo type.
That’s Erin from Two Story Cottage in the back on the left and Sandra from Sawdust and Paper Scraps in the black dress.
BUT…
This is not all I have to say about Haven. This week I’ll write about the amazing sponsors and swag we got like window cleaner I can’t wait to use. I mean who is excited to clean their windows? This girl.
And all the wonderful people I met including you-know-who,
And I’ll talk about the Haven living room, which was our fun hang out space for the week.
and…. I have a Haven video for you too!
Now if I can just learn to edit video 🙂 You know who you are if you are in it!
If you were at Haven, come say hi! If you haven’t been to a blog conference, anything you want me to talk about?
Welcome to all my new Haven friends! Linking up to Southern Hospitality’s Haven High.
