With about one and a half years of blogging under my fingers, I’ve had the opportunity to meet lots of bloggers both local and from all over the country in a variety of settings. You hear stories of people with blog stalkers, and people who have very uncomfortable experiences meeting with people they don’t know except through the computer, but I’ve yet to have a bad one yet.
The first time I met up with bloggers was at the I <3 Thrifting Day in Columbia, SC which was organized by Shanika of Life is Pichey, via a larger idea from another SC blogger, Rashon Carraway (aka Mr. Goodwill Hunting). I met up with about fifteen other thrift-shopping ladies and we took a tour of only some of Columbia’s best thrift shops, digging through piles, trying on cute outfits, and laughing at some of the incredibly weird stuff we found for sale! It was balls-hot that day but it was memorable and a great way to meet people I may otherwise never have. I also learned that there are a good handful of thrift-store-shopping-vegetarian bloggers!
(Photo source: Life is Pichey)
The next big blog friend event wasn’t far from this time, it was the Healthy Living Summit (recap here), a 200+ person event for all manners of healthy living bloggers and readers alike! I shared a hotel room with three ladies I’d never met before and met dozens and dozens over other great people whose blogs I had been reading and many more who I started reading after that weekend! It was probably a 20% learning experience from the sessions and 70% social experiences from just hanging out and talking for nearly 3 whole days.
From there I’ve met up with a good handful of locals whose blogs I read and enjoy, including Summer, Kelly, Laura, and Emma! All fun times, all great experiences (mostly centered on food and/or beer, if you need the honest truth!). I also am involving myself more in the Social Media Club of Columbia, where I am meeting bloggers, Tweeters, and social media addicts of all kinds to share in this fun Internet mess that we can’t get enough of.
The next step? Why, it’s organizing the Columbia Food Blogger Meetup! The purpose is to keep the good streak of fun times and friendly faces coming! It’s fun and refreshing to hang out with like minded people, and it’s especially relieving when they are pulling out their cameras to capture photos of our food, beers, or anything else, really. Specific moment: at the Indie Grits opening party with Laura when we were both reaching in our bags to get the camera to photograph our grits dinner I said, “I think I love you!”
(But I don’t love the photo- too blurry!)
So if you want to join in on the fun times, sign up for the first Columbia Food Blogger Meetup! I am working on getting sponsors for goodie bags to make this event even BETTER! If you know of or are a company or restaurant that might be interested in sponsoring, please let me know!
