Day 17: Never have I ever... crashed a black tie gala

I live a reasonable life in a fabulous city. I am not the woman with the perfect, shiny hair laughing over a glass of white Bordeaux in a sleek SoHo restaurant. I don't frequent establishments with velvet ropes of any sort. Though I am a fan of establishments with other sorts of ropes, like climbing or nautical. And my black-tie gala experience is mostly comprised of some lovely events I've worked on.  (I usually attend these events sweaty and frenzied, having changed into my gown in a hotel bathroom stall while simultaneously shimmying my pantyhose on and shoving a piece of pizza in my mouth.) Glamour. 

But the fabulosity of New York City is an intriguing environment to inhabit. Some days I love it. Some days I hate it. Sometimes I'm envious. Sometimes I get exhausted just looking at the fabulous people leading fabulous lives because, Dear Lord, I just couldn't look that fabulous all the time without the help of a daily blow-out, manicure, make-up artist, and personal stylist. And a therapist to help me with my impending identity crisis.

Party-crashing has reached epic proportions in recent-ish media. How hard is it to be faux-fabulous for a day? I dared myself to crash an honest-to-goodness black-tie gala as an imperceptible interloper. Haven't we all wondered if we have a little Gatsby in us? 

Pre-crash mirror-shot

This task required buddy. I knew exactly who would be up for this silly and somewhat daring challenge: my pal Beth, the ultimate performer. She agreed to be my wingwoman without hesitation. Hesitation is the enemy. 

The plan was to pick a gala, dress to impress, and then brush right by the registration area while speaking French to each other. (I didn't say it was a good plan.) Beth speaks French fluently and impeccably, and I planned to say the minimum number of French words required to feign a normal conversation. If approached, act confused and attempt to explain that we were searching for a party, in broken English, of course. Should we get nabbed, we figured that flat-out lying was a no-no and could land us in hot water. But friendly, lost French ladies? Innocuous! 

For Plan A, we picked a Mother of a gala: The Director's Council Winterball for the Museum of the City of New York. Held at none other than The Plaza Hotel. Attendance by invitation only. $3,500 per ticket. Yikes bikes. For Plan B, we picked the 100 Black Men Gala at the Hilton New York. Mainly because I've done several events in that hotel, spent literally hundreds of hours inside of it, and know the Ballroom names, floorplans, and square footage by heart. Plus, the security is a joke, and I know it. 

@ the Plaza, longingly peering in

We learned that the Winterball began at 6:30 pm, so we arrived around 7:45, hair did and dolled up. The Plaza was crawling with hotel staff, men in penguin suits, and ladies in floor- sweeping sparkle gowns. Confidently, we nodded at the hotel greeters and breezed right through the giant floral arrangement in the lobby. Straight ahead there was a set of glass doors and a small line formed in its opening. Beth concentrated on our faux French dialogue while I scoped out the situation. We followed the other guests and stood in line with them for a hot second, until I craned my neck around the huge blond head in front of me and saw a firing squad of a registration table.  Then I was blinded by the flash of hired paparazzi-like photographers. Crap. This wasn't going to work; there was no way to get past these doors. Abort mission! I motioned to Beth that we should step out of line, which we did. From there, we worked our way around the outside of the windowed ballroom for a clear view inside. The set-up was intense. Once past the registration table, every guest was then funneled into a receiving line, where two photographers took photos of every...single...guest. We slipped out the side door. 

Next, we headed over to the 100 Black Men Gala at the Hilton. Into the lobby, up to floor 4 where the ballroom balcony would likely be empty. Bingo. We walked right in and peered down over the edge at the hundreds of guests below. There were several empty seats, and it would have been a piece of cake to go from the balcony to the ballroom. But, we arrived just as Mayor Bloomberg was speaking about the night's award recipients. There were several men standing in line, waiting for their moment of glory. And they would all have speeches. Long speeches. We were already a little buzzkilled from the Plaza ordeal, so we decided to leave during the dinner portion of the gala (which we didn't feel right about crashing, anyway), and return for the after-party. Having checked out the after-party room, it was enticing. A big dance floor, two large bars, and a huge stage with a 8-piece band set-up. 

When we returned a few hours later, we waltzed right into the after-party. La-dee-da. Unfortunately, we came back a bit too late. The band was still going strong, but the dance floor now held only a few stragglers. The surrounding cocktail tables were still populated by event guests conversing and enjoying the band, and so we sat down at an empty table. The bars was open (hooray!), so yes, we did order a glass of wine, and no, we weren't charged. Oh, this is the whole crashing part. It felt wrong and exciting. Weeee! 

The party featured a fantasic jazz rock band. The lead was a Grammy-winning (and gorgeous) female soul artist named Maya Azucena. She was joined by a voluptuous secondary vocalist named Honey, a rapping keyboardist, an androgynous saxophonist, and a groovy lady bassist. The band alone made the night worth it. We toasted with our free glasses of wine and soaked in the great music, fashionable guests, and all around fabulousness of the dwindling party. 

Results: Plan A went bust; the Plan B for Plan B did work, technically. With a little confidence and dressing the part, we did go to a black-tie gala for which we weren't invited guests. It wasn't quite our epic vision of mingling and dancing the night away, but we didn't get arrested or held in hotel jail (yes, they have one), and that's a win.  

Status: Mild Success? Primary Fail? You decide.