COCO+KELLEY AT LEGENDS OF LA CIENEGA

Let's just start this post off by saying that I have never felt so lucky to a part of an event as I did with being invited to speak at Legends of La Cienega. The immense number of talented attendees and presenters alone made this such a fun and fabulous few days!
The weekend started off with a cocktail reception where I was lucky enough to bring along Annie - my former colleague and good friend - as my date. We mingled with lots of other designers, and had the chance to meet Christian of Maison21 as well as Jill, the Los Angeles writer for Material Girls. (Just the beginning of me finally being able to put faces to the names of many other bloggers throughout the weekend!)
We ended the evening by meeting up with this beautiful group for dinner - the amazingly talented Ron Woodson (far left) and Jamie Rummerfield (in the black) of Woodson & Rummerfield flanked by Peter Gurski, one of my favorite LA ladies, Suzanne Marques, and Romain Bouticourt.

After a late evening, Friday morning started off bright and early with a panel at Rose Tarlow featuring Mary McDonald, Joe Nye, Virgil McDowell, Lisa Fine and Carolina Irving.

My favorite moments of inspiration were brought on by Joe Nye's quick quips - I cannot wait to dive into his new book, Flair for even more of his tidbits of genius.

After this panel, it was time for my main event!! Hosted by George Smith Furniture & Fabrics as well as Angelino Interiors Magazine, our panel featured the talented bloggers, Gregory Han (Apartment Therapy), Joy Cho (Oh Joy!) and Janet Hall (Remodelista), and was moderated by Alexandria Abramian-Mott, Editor in Chief of Angelino Interiors.

It was such an honor to be amongst the talented company on this stage! I somehow managed to coordinate my colorful outfit with the chairs, while Joy wins for best shoes of the day (fabulous kate spades i've been coveting since the holidays!)

Even more of an honor to have many coco+kelley readers and fellow bloggers approach me after the panel for photos, questions and introductions, including these gorgeous ladies!

Ashlina of The Decorista and one of my favorite Twitter pals Jami Goldsmith - both of which have fantastic blogs (and style!).

It was a packed house all the way to the back, so a huge thank you to everyone who turned out!

I have to also mention a big thank you to some of the people behind the scenes at Elle Decor for their hospitality! I even had a brief little chance to chat with the impeccably lovely Margaret Russell (I don't know how I managed to forget a photo of that moment!) and I have to say that I think it's incredibly wonderful that Elle Decor along with magazines like Angelino Interiors are so supportive of working with bloggers to help us reach new audiences through events like these. I hope to see many of you there again next year!

*photos by mark savage courtesy of elle decor, and coco+kelley