It’s been awhile since I last posted but I’ve been MIA for the past few weeks because of exams. Needless to say, it was all a blur to me. However, recently after finishing this Spring semester, I went to volunteer for the Vancouver Magazine Restaurant Awards. The day before the event, about a dozen volunteers helped with packing the gift bags for the event. I’ve never been to the awards before and didn’t know what I was going to do or what to expect. But that afternoon, the volunteers and I spent the whole time unpacking the goodies from the hundreds of cardboard boxes and stuffing them all in the 800 recyclable bags. Yes, you read it right. There were 800. It was a gruelling task but we got it done in 3 hours! But the real task came the next day at the awards.
My job at the awards was to help manage the line of nearly 700 incoming guests. I stood on my feet for a few hours but I was smart enough to wear comfortable flats with Dr. Scholls insoles. I didn’t realize that the event was big deal. As one of the coordinators for the event stated, “this event is the Oscars of the Vancouver food industry. If a restaurant wins an awards, good luck making reservations for the next year.” Because this was the “event to be,” only people who RSVP’d were able to come. A lot of TV hosts and BC news anchors came, which was nice surprise for me. All in all, the event went really smoothly and I enjoyed gaining some special events experience. The nicest surprise was going to the after party at Joey Bentall with some of the volunteers. We were all tired but decided just to relax and have a glass of wine. What I loved the most was the food though. It was so delicious, but it was probably because I was exhausted and hungry so anything that I ate tasted really good to me. But have a look for yourself and see if I was wrong.
The pictures were taken with my Blackberry’s camera. Not as professional as I would’ve liked, but it did the job. As you could see, the food was amazing. I even want to try them all over again! However, the event was a lot of fun and I had an amazing experience. Thought I share with you snippets of the spectacular event.
Cheers!
– Stephanie Carmen
stephanie carmen 