2011 NSS Meetup

Like I've mentioned a couple times, last week I attended an annual NSS Meetup co-hosted by Cyd of The Sweetest Occasion and got to meet and mingle with so many great people. This year's get together was held at Brooklyn Winery, a really cool spot in Williamsburg that makes and serves wines, holds tastings and schools you on the winemaking process. Barrels served as tables topped with beautiful flower arrangements and custom-made letterpress coasters for the occasion. Swag bags were filled with goodies from Mohawk Paper Store, Cat Seto, Delphine, Green Paper Company, Paper + Cup, Wendelline Papers, "Eat.Shop"guides and Anthology and The Knot magazines. Of course being the media professional that I am, I waited until I was on the train back home before I dug in like it was Christmastime.

I went into this thing without really knowing any of the other attendees...except for one. Meg Mateo Ilasco, creative director of Anthology, and I decided to meet up at the event after I learned that she'd be in town to catch the trade show. I was really looking forward to spending some time with her, especially after learning that they were pleased with my story for their fourth issue, and that we did...for the entire night. We just chatted it up, joked around and tried to mingle in that sea of strangers. She was just unbelievably sweet and a joy to be around.

Other people I talked with: Allyson Van Houten of Felt + Wire/Mohawk, Cat Seto (who, along with Meg, is in the final throes of their upcoming book "Mom, Inc."), Claudia Smith of Fig. 2 Design Studio, Heather Lee from Brides.com, Joel Mejia from The Knot (and a former Latina coworker of mine!), and this sweet art director at People magazine whose name I've completely forgotten. In fact, I'm talking to her in the first photo below. (Can you spot my green jacket in the upper left hand corner?) In it we're probably going on about her destination wedding plans, the dwindling population of native New Yorkers in the city and how hard it is not to tear into our goodie bags despite the fact that we should be unfazed by press freebies by now. When Meg first came up to me, she and I were clicking so well, Meg asked us how long we'd known each other for. "Oh, about ten minutes." Don't you just love effortless connections like that?
Images: Kelly Guenther Studio via thesweetestoccasion.com