All I can say is, ‘Wow’. What a trip.

I recently got back home from a long weekend trip to Nashville, Tennessee where I attended the BlissDom 2012 blogger conference. I thought it’d be fun to share some of the fun things we did and some of the valuable information I took with me.

So, first things first. I’m an organized person, so I’ll show you my schedule for each day…then show you in pictures.

Thursday, February 23

9:30am EST – Arrive at the Charleston, SC airport
10:40am EST – Depart from Charleston, SC
11:15am CST – Arrive in Nashville, TN
11:45am – Arrive at the Gaylord Opryland Hotel (more like a city if you ask me)
12:00pm – Registration
12:30pm – Handmade market
1:00pm – Met and got to know Bree (got a snack…banana & veggies)
1:30pm – Community Leader meeting
2:30pm – Newcomer’s Meeting
3:30pm – Blissfully Domestic meet up! Officially in love with my editors & fellow writers.
5:30pm – Put luggage in my room and quickly met the roommates
6:00pm – Met with Katie & Victoria from Land ‘O Frost
7:00pm – Kick Off Event – Met Amanda & Stephanie
9:30pm – Late night dessert with Amanda & Stephanie (Cakeeeee!)
10:30pm – Bed time

It was a whirl wind of a first day and of course I didn’t include all of the amazing details, but you get the idea.

Oh and just so you know, it was my first time flying Southwest airlines. It was a pretty neat experience not having an assigned seat. I actually REALLY liked it. I got a window seat every time…just how I like it…and an empty seat between me and the next passenger. I will, however, comment on how uncomfortable I thought the head rest portion of the seats were. They made your head go forward. Awkward.

As for the hotel…wow. It was HUGE, but there was food on every corner…complete with gelato and cookies! 😉

P.S. Don’t you just love the description of the carrot cake that we tasted!?!?

Friday, February 24

6:00am – Wake up call
8:00am – Breakfast
9:00am – Opening Keynote with the Bliss Chicks & Jon Acuff
11:00am – Session 1: Shoot like a women w/ Me Ra Koh. (photo of Rachel & me)
12:30pm – Lunch
1:30 – Toured a little bit of the Sponser Expo (had to get my Hershey’s on!)
2:30pm – Session 2: Likeability 2.0: Women, Influence and the Social Web
4:00pm – Yogurt snack break
4:30pm – Session 3: The Present Principle: How to be Present in a Demanding World
6:00pm – Dinner with Bree (& Joe Jonas?)
7:00pm – Lorax Party
8:00pm – Girls Night Out with Joe Jonas and The Rascal Flatts
11:00pm – Bedtime

Some take-aways I got from my sessions on Friday:

• Photography
• Turn off the flash and get an external flash (on my to-do list)
• Go to concrete to shoot people….not the pretty little park complete with grass. The lighting will be much better in a parking lot.
• Be willing to miss shots to get great shots.
• Fill the frame with the whole story – less is more
• Darkness illuminates the light – don’t be afraid of the dark
• You need to be an expert on light.
• If you only had two rolls of film, how would you spend them? i.e. don’t take 20 shots of the same thing.
• Likeability 2.0
• In the day of the facebook ‘like’, being likeable is more important than ever to being successful.
• Women in social media can be likeable and successful.
• Appeal + Talent + Audience = Influence
• To be likeable – be authentic, accessible, transparent, engaging, share things, quality engagement over quantity
• Promote one another
• The Present Principle
• P- Pray (pause, peace)
• R – Read – Devotional, google reader (motivation)
• E – Express – Write, sketch (I write random thoughts down about your life to later add to your posts to add a personal touch)
• S – Schedule – Have a plan (google calendar, stickies, etc)
• E – Exercise – Be healthy! (I keep a google exercise calendar and if I don’t see that I’ve exercised in a couple of days, I make it a goal to do it that day. I’m a visual person, so seeing the color of my exercise calendar splotched all over the month, makes me feel accomplished!)
• N – Nourish – Do something that’ll make you happy! i.e. For me, foodgawker, pinterest, twitter, baking, etc.
• T – Track – How did you do today? Write it down, make lists and visually cross things off to make you feel accomplished!

Saturday, February 25

6:00am – Wake up
8:00am – Breakfast
9:30am – Session 1: Legal Confidence: Empower Yourself for Blogging Success
11:30am –  Session 2: Expanding Your Brand: Mobile Photography, Microblogging & Instagram
1:00pm – Sit down lunch & Chris Mann performance
2:30pm – Food Blogger meet-up for dessert tasting (Amanda, Kristan, Shelly, Molly, Stephanie)!!!
4:45pm – Closing Keynote
6:15pm – Dinner with food bloggers
8:30pm – Girls Night In with Oprah & Paula Dean
10:00pm – Bed time

• Legal Confidence
• If you make money off of your website, you need to form a company.
• Taxes: compensation (stuff you receive), income (money you make) and expenses (costs to run the site, etc)
• Have a disclosure policy written in your own words on your site.
• Watermark your images, or even place a white bar at the bottom of every image listing the URL and a statement saying Don’t Use Without Permission.
• There’s an automatic copyright to original work of authorship when something is published or emailed (images or words).
• Instagram
• They want to see your world.
• Good photo apps:
• camera +
• photoshop express (or the paid version has good noise reduction)
• slow shutter
• fotoframe
• vintage camera
• grid lens
• text to photo
• phoster
• Places to see instagram photos on the web
• gramfeed
• instagrid
• Blurb is a good printing website for instagram photos

Sunday, February 26

7:00am – Wake up
8:30am – Kala picked me up
9:00am – Breakfast at Fido
10:00am – Window shopping at Anthropologie, Lulu Lemon & Whole Foods
11:00am – Coffee at Hot & Cold
12:00pm – Visited Leipers Fork & Franklin
1:00pm – Picnic & nap in Sevier Park
2:30pm – Popsicles at Las Palatas
3:30pm – Work (free wifi) at Portland Brew
5:00pm – Dinner at Mafiaoza’s
7:00pm – Watched Harry Potter
10:00pm – Bed time

Monday, February 26

7:30am – Wake up
8:00am – Breakfast
9:00am – Coffee with Amy at Frothy Monkey
10:30am – Toured East Nashville
11:30am – Lunch at The Wild Cow
1:00pm – Ice cream at Hot & Cold
2:30pm – Airport
3:30pm – Supposed to lift off…delayed = nap time
4:20pm CST – Lift off
6:15pm EST – Arrive in Charleston, SC
7:00pm – Dinner with my Dad & youngest sister, Eliza at Sette
10:00pm – Bed time

Annnnddd, I just got home (to Columbia, SC) from Charleston, SC. My mom and sister, Katie, were in Honduras for the week on a medical mission trip. My dad was at a conference in Raleigh, NC and my other sister, Margaret, is/was in school at CofC. So, I was there, hanging with my youngest sister, Eliza. 😀

I hope you enjoyed my recap of my extended BlissDom weekend!