Black Tie Dinner

Rachel and hubby arrived in Portland last night for the black tie event. The four of us got all dolled up –the boys had on tuxes– and we headed to the event. It’s under tents outside and thankfully it wasn’t raining like last year!

The event benefits the Sunshine Division, which is a charity run by the Portland Police Bureau and is a food bank for less fortunate Portlandlers. It’s a great program and I’ve volunteered for them in the past. The first time I volunteered, a few friends and I worked in the warehouse sorting all the food donated. Beans go in one bin, soup in another, boxes of cake mix in another, etc etc. It was a lot of hard work but it felt good. The next year, another friend and I volunteered at Christmas to deliver the boxes of food to people’s houses. Boxes were filled with canned goods, loaves of bread, an entire ham and other goodies. It felt really good to help!

So how the Black Tie dinner works is that there are a bunch of tables under the tents and everybody at the table bids money against the other table’s for the “right” to eat the fancy dinner first. 🙂 It can get pretty crazy. Last night a table bid $2500 to go through the line first! It’s all for a good cause so we don’t mind. And it was an excuse to dress up and drink wine! 🙂 We played Paparazzi outside before we left. Here’s pictures of the outfits!

Some people arrived at the event in limos. We did not. But Rachel and I are plotting for next year. We’ve already got it all worked out. We’ll invite another couple to come, we all split the cost of a limo and make an event of it! Fun!

There was a lot of wine:

And some snacks to munch on while we waited for dinner:

The veggie tray was good and I think I ate all of them. 😉

There was also a tray of assorted crackers and some kind of apricot/prosciutto appetizer.

But mostly we just drank wine until the table bidding finally started!

It had been like 8 hours since I’d eaten lunch and drinking on an empty stomach (broccoli doesn’t count!) meant I got pretty tipsy! Note to self: next year bring snacks!

It’s funny because Michael and I didn’t coordinate or plan what we were wearing and we both wore red!

Mr. Wonderful

Finally the bidding was done and we could get food. I think it was almost 10pm at this point. Dinner was fillet Mignon wrapped in bacon, jumbo shrimp, roasted potatoes, Caesar salad and bread.

Dinner

Yum! We were famished.

The band started to play Oldies music (I think we were the youngest couples there) and we decided to continue the tradition from last year and leave to get dessert at Papa Haydn’s! The funny thing, we got to Papa Haydn’s at about 11pm and were seated at the exact same table as last year, too! Weird!

Michael ordered his favorite thing: the Bourbon Ball.

Bourbon Ball

I got the New York Cheesecake and ate about half of it.  I was stuffed.

Cheesecake

It was a fantastic night! I loved my dress. Hated my shoes–I am taking them to Goodwill immediately. But it was a good time. 😉 I don’t feel guilty about anything I ate last night because I followed my 90/10 Rule. I don’t work out all the time to NOT enjoy a good meal once in awhile!