Children in Need - Evening With The Stars.

Last week I was very kindly invited along to the Children in Need 'Evening With The Stars' Gala Dinner at the Grosvenor House Hotel in London. It was a wonderful evening full of glitz and glamour, and after a champagne reception we had a three course meal, a performance by Gareth Malone's childrens choir, dancing performances by Strictly Come Dancing stars, as well as a huge silent auction.

But first, let me start from the beginning. While everyone at work was getting covered in face paint and fake blood ready for the Halloween event, I was piling on the red lipstick and squeezing myself into a little black dress for the Children in Need dinner. I was sad to miss the Halloween event as I'd been really looking forward to it, but I could not pass up the chance to go to such an amazing dinner and support such an amazing charity! The dress code was cocktail dress or black tie, but seeing as I have a few black tie events coming up, I opted for a cocktail dress. 

I got to the Grosvenor House Hotel bang on time, and after putting my extra bags and coat in the cloakroom and getting a quick selfie in the long mirror (Poppy caught me doing this, awks #sorrynotsorry), I headed into the Great Room. 

I had a couple of glasses of champagne, and milled around people-watching. This event was great for people-watching; people from all walks of life were there, and it was fascinating - especially the woman in her fifties wearing a see-through lace dress which showed off her g-string and delightfully huge colourful tattoos on her left bum cheek. Thankfully there were plenty of glamorous women there to make up for her faux pas.

I soon found Poppy and Megan, and we headed down the stairs to our table where we met the other people on our Paragon Events Management table (Paragon are the people who organized the entire event). We were quite far towards the back so couldn't really see much, but the lovely Gillian who was sat next to me stood up with me to see the Strictly stars dance. We also had these cuties on our table...

In-between courses we had the chance to mingle, and despite missing Alfie Boe and Anton Du Beke *sob*, (I couldn't see/find them anywhere!) I did get to meet Craig Revel-Horwood and Larry Lamb, aka, Archie Mitchell! Both of them were absolutely lovely, I love how Larry looks as though he's winking at Megan who was taking the photo (I think maybe he just blinked though). 

For dinner the starter was salmon. Every dinner I go to the starter is salmon. I can't handle salmon. I'll forgive them though seeing as they had over 1000 people to cook a three-course meal for. As I didn't have the starter I only have photos of the main and dessert - sorry! For mains we had beef, and dessert was a cheesecake type of thing, a chocolate mousse (which was ah-mazing), and ice-cream which tasted of some sort of nut or marzipan, I couldn't decide which, but it was also delicious!

After dinner was the silent auction. This was around 10pm so I had to rush off to get back to Waterloo for my last train home. I was really sad I had to miss the auction and after-party, but I didn't fancy sleeping on a sofa in the club. I had such a fab night, and was so happy to finally meet Poppy from Poppy Loves, after reading her blog for absolutely yonks! It was also a pleasure to meet Diego who founded Bacanal, who's La Plage party I went to back in April. He even remembered my blog post and blog name - now that ladies and gents, is a good CEO.