If you follow me via Twitter or Instagram the evidence is clear- I had a blast at Blissdom. I’ve been making a big deal for the past few months about how excited I was for the conference, and I’m so glad I went. Luckily, the event was in Grapevine, about 2 hours from my house, so I was able to drive pretty quickly to the Gaylord Hotel.

I roomed with Neely, Heather, and Ashley– and seriously had a blast. Between Heather’s breast pumping machine reminding me about her video to doing makeup for the girls, I had tons of fun.

Blissdom gals and Lisa Leonard
The roomies plus the fabulous Lisa Leonard: Heather, Neely, Lisa, Ashley, and myself. My scarf and top are courtesy of shophopes.com

The girls and I had been group texting for several weeks about our Blissdom excitement, and I recall jumping up and down like crazy at the airport when I first saw Heather, and gave Ashley a huge hug the second I saw her.

My roommates and I decided beforehand that it would be fun to swap roommate gifts. I’m seriously excited for it all, and have no idea how we all got such awesome stuff.

roomie gifts for blissdom
The gifts I got the girls. I thought it’d be fun to decorate their gift bags with their logos
IMG_3308
The gifts the girls got me: my logo on a tote bag, a necklace with my blog name from The Vintage Pearl, a mix cd, essentials like gum, chapstick, lint roller, and snacks, and a Maybook for notes!

Ok, enough of my bragging. I kinda can’t help how much I love it all. Anyway, back to the stuff I know y’all wanna read! I kinda just took the topic titles from Meg’s post, because I think she did a great job on what to touch on.

Event Organization

  • Blissdom was highly well organized. We got there on Wednesday night and checked out where the conference would be held and I was really impressed on how hard everyone was working to get everything set up.
  • Everything was laid out in close proximity, so walking a lot wasn’t any kind of worry for everyone in heels.
  • Our room was in the same tower as the conference which I was so thankful for. After long days of being at the conference, I was always thankful our room was closeby.
  • The Blissdom staff posted tips on how to save the agenda to your iPhone so you could easily have it at your fingertips. I thought that was really awesome (and it taught me something new for my phone!)
Pre-Blissdom with the roomies and Natalie!
Pre-Blissdom with the roomies and Natalie!
First to register from Blissdom
First to register from Blissdom! Yuuuus!

Keynote Speakers

  • The speakers were amazing. No, at Blissdom you don’t learn tips on how to grow your reader numbers or how to switch to WordPress. It’s all stuff you can Google, so instead Blissdom focused on inspiring you so you can better your blog.
  • I couldn’t help but write down every single word that Jon Acuff and Scott Stratten. If you’re not following these two on Twitter already, my advice is to go now! Some famous words from them? “Knowledge + Passion = Profit” – Scott, “Twitter is a conversation, not a dictation”- Scott, “1 insult + 1000 comments= 1 insult”- Jon, “booty God booty”- Jon
Alissa polinate, Stephanie vintage modern wife, Alissa printed palette
Got to meet the 2 Alissa’s! Love Pollinate and Printed Palette 🙂
nancy and stephanie
Finally got to meet Nancy! She’s amazing!
What happens when you don't have enough coffee yet at keynote. Funny faces!
What happens when you don’t have enough coffee yet at keynote. Funny faces!

Daytime Sessions

  • My favorite session of them all was Lisa Leonard’s. She totally made me cry when listening to her story and it really got me thinking about my own story. She makes me want to branch out and really open up on here. I’m just not sure how. Not only that, but after her session, she came to EVERY table and chatted to see if we had questions. I’ve been to many conferences for work, and have never had that happen. The changes that I’ll be making on the blog all stem from her session.
  • Wendy Sherer did a session on marketing and actually gave me the idea for Monday’s reader survey! Her session was really fast, however (done in 15/60 mins) so I felt a little lost, but I did get some good tips out of those few minutes.
  • Danielle Smith was awesome and really got me thinking about how I could eventually get more into media. She seemed really nice and knowledgeable  and gave good tips on pitches, how to impact people if you’re on tv, and how to build expertise.
  • Lucrecer Braxton was one of my favorites and I decided to take her photography session because most of my pictures on the blog come from my iPhone and I really feel like pictures speak values, so bringing better pictures for y’all is important. She gave tips and techniques for iPhones all the way to DSLR. I was SO thankful because 1) I don’t even own or can afford a DSLR, and 2) all I brought was my iPhone and old point and shoot.
  • Again, Blissdom isn’t about stuff you can “Google” so it was all about inspiration so you can find that application that YOU need. There wasn’t any “new” information I really learned, but it was more like ways to get me thinking in a different way, or go more in depth with my thoughts. Each session had a questionairre afterward for you to fill out in your spare time, and had thought-provoking questions. I haven’t finished them all yet, but so far I’m liking them.
Stephanie and Alli Worthington
me and Alli Worthington
AP and I rockin the chambray and mint
AP and I rockin the chambray and mint- my mint pants: shophopes.com

Ok, this is already a ton of info, so stay tuned for tomorrow’s blog post for part 2 and find out more about my experience at Blissdom!

Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links and/or product(s) sent from companies or their PR team for editorial consideration. For more information, please view my disclosure policy.