The Canadian Country Music Awards were on Sunday and I was at the backstage gift lounge with larry. gc’s for all the VIPs and celebs.  Rachel Zottenberg from the grace-gallery was my partner in prime, and despite having a very long day in the lounge it was incredibly memorable and we had a blast.

all photos by the lovely, the wonderful, the amazing Heather Watson – check out her whole CCMA set!

Early in the morning we met Jason Priestley.  Yes, Brandon Walsh of 90210 fame.  Brian Austen Green was always my favourite but you can’t be picky when it comes to meeting 90210 stars.  Jason and I chatted about his daughter’s birthday party, in which they had a petting zoo and an alpaca came along, and he was very impressed that I managed to keep everything for “larry.” local to BC.  Heather Watson snapped this photo of us – it was so cute, he got sandwiched in between Rachel and I and had to get on his tippy toes just to reach this height:

To be honest I didn’t know who most of the people cruising through the room were.  You could tell who the ‘important’ ones were by the number of photographers following them around, and whether or not they had a personal shopper escorting them through the lounge.  I’m not one to get too hot and bothered by celebrities, and Rachel told me something her Dad once said to her as a kid…he said if you put photos of people up on your wall, they become idols.  And if you idolize them, then you’ll never be like them – but you already are like them.  They’re just people.

That being said, I absolutely could NOT resist a photo with one of the Canucks, even if just to give my brothers something to gloat about to their friends.  Here’s me (late in the day, right after I had my hair done by celebrity stylist Jami Symons from AG Hair, and swapped into my Obakki dress) with Alex Burrows:

I was quickly off to the Factor post awards red carpet reception at the Hyatt, where there were about 1,000 people milling about.  It was a bit strange that tickets were available to the public, as the stars were cruising around the room without any segregation at all.  Which is nice, but incredibly rare in my experience.  Got a few more photos with some of the people I met in the gift lounge, all of whom were so nice and polite and remembered exactly who I was.

From here there were two parties to attend: one at the Shark Club, and the other at the Cellar.  We opted to go straight to the Cellar, which was a good thing as the guest list was extremely tight and I was very lucky to get in.  Open bar, jam packed with the who’s who of the awards attendees, and intimate performances by some of the musicians.

Here’s a camera phone shot of Dean Brody (what a heartthrob! chatted with him a few times in the evening) on stage:

A big hello to all of the wonderful gift lounge attendees and participants I met that day.  What an experience!