How awesome was Puggy Prom?... SO AWESOME!

Did you miss Puggy Prom this year? Are you kicking yourself because you did? There, there...with any luck, we'll do it again next year!

We turned MetroBark into a "Puggin' on the Ritz" fantasy. Balloons, mirrored stars, top hats & canes decorated the main ballroom. Lisa & I created a fairy tale entrance with white lights, burgundy chiffon, white carnations & curly ribbons. I wanted it to be a gateway to a fantasy land...to let people know this was no ordinary dog party. Mission...accomplished!!! It looked amazing...pictures to come!

The food room had a "Lady & the Tramp" theme, complete with "clothes drying on lines between buildings" and "Belle Notte" playing softly in the background. Dan's mom spent several nights just cutting out pieces of "clothing" from construction paper to make the clothes lines, we found just the right table clothes, and Dan created a loop of the song that lasted over 2 hours! We had a small army of PugSocial's best & brightest decorating non-stop on Friday & Saturday to achieve everything I had envisioned. A huge thank you to my friends who worked really hard to get everything done.

Prom night goes by SOOOOO fast. It goes from 5:30 to 9:30 in the blink of an eye! Once again, I barely had a chance to talk to anyone, and I fell behind schedule (how does this happen?!?) but I think it went really well. $2, 630.50 in funds raised for OPR is nothing to sneeze at. People spent over $800.00 trying to win the stuff in the Chinese Auction. We had so many items donated at the last minute that the CA volunteers just kept bundling things together! The estimated total value of everything donated was well over $2,000. I really loved watching all the couples in the Owner/Pug Dance Contest; it was probably my favorite part of the night! I can't wait till we have all the video footage.

But this year made me realize that Puggy Prom has grown too big for me to handle all by myself. With over 140 people there, 20 of whom were vendors & volunteers who probably could have used more help, I spread myself too thin. I'm not ashamed, I'm proud that after only the second year of doing this, it's become such a huge deal. I'm really excited that I was able to solicit for prom committee members for next year...and it happened. A small group of "PugSocial's finest" have agreed to help me out next year! There's room for plenty more, but this is a good start. I can just see this event 4-5 years down the road. With careful cultivation, marketing & enthusiasm this can become as big as Chicago's Pug Crawl!

Look for pictures & video from the event up on PugSocial.com soon. That's my next project, as soon as the thank you letters are done!