After a year in the making, last Thursday, we officially launched The Scout Guide Alexandria Volume 5! To celebrate the guide’s debut, we hosted an incredible party for our members and their guests at Helen Olivia Flowers in Del Ray. There is so much time and effort that goes into creating this book that when it finally arrives from the printer, we love to celebrate not only its debut but all of the people who make the guide what it is.  

The Party

This year’s launch party was our best one yet. Honestly, I don’t know if we’ll be able to top it in years to come and it’s all thanks to Rachel of Helen Olivia. Her new space in Del Ray is absolutely stunning and held our almost 300 guests seamlessly. Rachel is not only an extremely talented florist but also has a background in event planning, so she was the perfect partner for this event. Every vision I had for this party was brought to life, even the aerial performer (not kidding). Hadley of Hosted Events was a huge help coordinating our vendors, don’t know what I would do without them! This year’s cover color is pink, so we went big with the pink theme. We tied it all together with all things pink from DC Rentals, lighting from Electric Events DC (also our DJ), beer from Aslin and rosé poured by The Patterson Group. Even the aerial artist’s cube was pink!  In the center of the room, we had an incredible culinary spread that was created by Eco Caters. The food was not only insanely delicious but also a work of art. From the grazing table to the passed hors d’oeuvres, you could tell it was all carefully thought out. Guests are still raving about how impressed they were with the food. At the end of the night, Stomping Ground cured our sweet tooth with delicious desserts that were all made right there in Del Ray. I’m still thinking about those marshmallows! When planning this event, I look at it as the ultimate way to collaborate with our members and other local partners. And since we threw a party in a flower shop, it was the perfect canvas to add some personal touches to make the party even more special for our guests. We were honored to have Laura of LH Calligraphy there personalizing guides for our businesses and their guests for them to take home. We also had a gorgeous lounge that was designed by Patina Polished Living where guests could kick back with a glass of wine or snap a pretty photo. Speaking of photos, Snap Entertainment helped us create such a fun Photo Booth for our guests using a boxwood wall that was already in Helen Olivia’s consult room. Rachel Added fresh florals and Artisan Matchmaker created an acrylic sign for us that is just absolutely stunning! The highlight of the night was our surprise holiday performance by Aerial Candy. I’m still in awe from it! I can’t thank our vendor partners enough for going above and beyond to ensure our guests felt celebrated at our launch.   

V5

Alexandria continues to amaze me with its generosity, passion, and kindness and when I took on this role as editor, I made it my goal to represent all of these traits on the pages of our book. So not only do we set out to support and be cheerleaders for small businesses, but we also have made it our mission to give back. Last year we had the pleasure of supporting The Seaport Foundation and were able to work with them closely to raise awareness and funds to help troubled youth get back on their feet. Last year we chose green as our cover color to reflect the partnership with The Seaport Foundation.  This year we wanted to do the same thing and so the reason we chose pink was to reflect our new charity partner, The National Breast Center Foundation. We asked our community to nominate a charity here in Alexandria that they felt would benefit from our partnership and we had an overwhelming amount of nominations for The Breast Center Foundation. After meeting Dr. Weintritt and the breast cancer survivors he has worked with, it was evident why. The work that Dr. Weintritt is doing to help women with breast cancer is groundbreaking but the fact that he is giving access to women without the resources to get screenings or treatment is absolutely incredible and truly speaks to the kind of person he is. We look forward to our partnership over the next year to raise funds and awareness for this amazing cause.  We couldn’t be happier with the way that the book turned out this year, it’s some of our best work yet. Our photographer, Sarah Marcella, has been an incredible partner in this process and so beautifully brought my vision to life. The local businesses featured on the pages of this guide are what make this community so special and we couldn’t be more thankful to work with them. We hope you will pick up a new guide around town and take the time visit the local business represented on our pages.Photo Credit: Emma Weiss[nemus_slider id="67646"]