iPost Holiday Gala

Yesterday was the Second Annual iPost Holiday Gala. Last year the gala was held at McNear’s in Petaluma. This year it was at the Hotel Monaco in Union Square, downtown San Francisco. Following the party we got to take the elevator home, as the company sprang for everyone to have rooms in the hotel. Woo hoo! Pictures after the jump…

The Gala Photo Gallery. There’s only one shot of me and that’s not until the end after we’d all changed out of our evening wear (Bob and Kevin both have many of me from the evening; I’ll link to their galleries when they’re posted). Also, I’ve not had the chance to do any captioning on these.

Festivities kicked off for some of us at Swig at 3:30pm right after Jen, Kevin and I checked into our rooms. Here is where I found that when buying your friend a glass of 25 year old scotch it’s best to ask the price first.

After Swig the party moved to my room which, despite the fact that I was one of the very few who was there alone, ended up being the largest of those assigned. Again, woo hoo!

At 5pm the Monaco serves a complimentary wine and cheese reception downstairs in their living room. A number of us gathered there for a while then filtered upstairs to don our fancy duds.

The official iPost soiree began with cocktails and hors d’oeuvres at 6pm followed by dinner at 7. There were no corny speeches or any of the other crap which normally goes with a company party. We just all hung out, looking lovely in our finery, and enjoyed each others’ company. That lasted until about 10pm, when we were kicked out of the banquet room. Liking the evening so much, we were determined to keep the fun rolling so we went up to our respective rooms and changed into more comfortable clothes before reconvening downstairs in the Grand Cafe.

By 1am we’d finally had enough and dispersed…until 9:30am or so, when we all started filtering back down to the Grand Cafe to have brunch together. Coffees, teas, eggs benedicts, toasts, bacons. And, of course, more good conversation and a great many laughs.

You’ve probably figured out by now that we all like each other a fair bit. This made the evening one of the best times I can remember having in many moons. We had a blast. It’s almost a shame that the company is growing. Something like what happened this weekend would be difficult to duplicate with more people involved. It’s really great that we had the opportunity to do it at all.