Tiara Dinner Part 2 - The Event

About two years ago, I decided that Tiara Dinners needed to be something more than just dinner with my friends.  Don't get me wrong!  I love them, but if we are parading around in tiaras, then there needs to be something more to it.  A purpose.  There were two parts to my purpose this year.

The first purpose was at dinner.  Usually when you go out as a large group, the gratuity is added on automatically.  That's fine, but I like to tip bigger than that especially when I'm wearing a tiara.  So before dinner, my friend made a tip jar with a tiara on it.  It was just a mason jar and a kid's tiara that she tied on with ribbon.  At dinner we passed it around and stuffed cash into it.  As we left the restaurant, we handed it to the waitress.  I guess it blessed her because she hugged one of my friends as she broke down in tears.  Waitresses make most of their money on tips.  She got a bonus that night.  God knew we were going to do that and gave us that waitress.  She must have needed it especially after taking care of us.  Ha!

There was also a cute little girl at another table who came over to ask if we were real princesses.  "Yes!" I told her and offered her a tiara too!  I then went over and handed her mom a card that explains what the Bible says about us being royalty because we belong to the King of Kings!

Part two of the evening's purpose was to shop for a local ministry that visits brothels.  I gave the ladies shopping lists and split them up into teams.  They were instructed on how many gift bags each team needed to fill and given thirty minutes do find the items, check out, and meet in the parking lot.  There were a few fun distractions while sharing with people what we were doing while shopping with tiaras on top.

Piling all the goodies into one car was a pleasant challenge.  I was overwhelmed by the generosity of my friends for a ministry that the didn't even know there was a need for until I told them about it.

On toward dessert!  We earned it after that shopping trip.  Starbucks was calling our names.  I handed out prizes to everyone for different reasons: biggest tiara, smallest tiara, best interpretation of the theme, drove the longest distance, best spa gift bags, gold star gift bags, etc.  No one went home without something!

When I got home I was again blessed, overwhelmed, and challenged to put together the gift bags.  I bagged 36 in total with extra stuff that could make 6-10 more gifts maybe?  The bags were delivered about a week later to the ministry and will be distributed all over town to the ladies held hostage in the brothels.

Thank you to everyone who was so generous to help!

2013 Tiara Dinner - The Ladies

I just can't seem to wrap my mind around the entire evening, so I'm going to divide and conquer - so to speak. I have to start with the ladies that came to the party. It was a party, a celebration of friendship and sisterhood in Christ.These ladies absolutely spoil me rotten!  Several drove literally hours to get to the event.  That is either dedication or insanity.  Maybe both.  How can I even begin to share who they are and how much they mean to me?

I usually think of them in categories from different parts of my life.  On this one evening each year, I bring them all together.  Then, it is fun to watch the new facebook friends that result after such an evening!  Some of these ladies are very dear "old" friends while others are brand new.  They haven't known me long enough to know better!  I have known several of them since high school through school or through the youth group at church.  They still keep up with me for some crazy reason.  One of those high school church buddies has been around the world with me!  I have decided that another one of those high school friends is family.  When you hang around someone long enough, you have the right to make that claim! And the other holds importance because she taught me to dance!  One sweet friend is from my college dorm.  She determined that we would be friends, and I'm so blessed because of it!  Moving ahead in time, two young ladies were my students either at church or youth camp.  Now they hang around me of their own free will as adults with husbands and children of their own.  What a blessing to watch them grow.  One lady has been a friend for ten years and a neighbor for five.  How fun to decide to live across the street from a friend!  Two ladies I've known from working at different schools.  Thank God for Christian women in the public schools.  Amen!  Three ladies are guests of people I invite regularly.  I open this up to anyone.  The more the merrier.  Seriously!  Also, my awesome sister-in-law has been a regular sucker for my tiara dinners.  I'm so thankful to have her as a SIL and a friend.

There you go.  The amazing ladies of the 2013 Tiara Dinner.  You know they are good friends to willingly go out in public wearing a tiara and knowing that at any moment someone could ask why.  At any moment they had to be ready to share the Gospel or know who to run to for help!  Thank you to each of them.

The pretty picture.  

Our true personalities.