To celebrate the launch of our new blog + Vancouver city guide, we had ourselves a little party! We wanted to bring together the Vancouver small business, creative, and Instagram community for some coffee, music, and photos and it was a super fun day. Thank you so much to everyone who came out to support, and to all of our amazing local vendors for making #heynowvancouver a success.

We are now officially 1 year old, so we wanted to celebrate our birthday too! The girls at Anewall Decor made us this incredible custom Instagram wallpaper mural that brought tears to our eyes. It was definitely a hit, and also really wonderful to be able to see the past year of our adventures all together in one place. When else does that happen? We can’t wait to put it up in our “studio” (also known as our apartment), and if you like what you see, you can get your own here.

When we were planning our party, we really only wanted one thing: selfies. Our friend Katie from Serpent Botanical offered to make us a “selfie frame” and boy, did she everr! This frame is so gorgeous and made for the perfect backdrop, along with some of her other floral styling. Speaking of, the flowers and table arrangements were provided by the girls at Our Little Flower Company, who sent us some really gorgeous stems too!

Shane from Cheddar Booth set us up a super sleek photo booth that lets you take your own pics at the click of a button and view them right after. You can see all the photos from the event here. The ladies at Hey Jude Shop styled us for the day to make sure we were party and selfie-ready with their awesome restored vintage wear.

A funny aside, we had actually rented a cotton candy machine, but while we were setting it up it kind of started smoking and we’re pretty sure it caught fire…sometimes you just gotta smile and say “oh well!”

Propaganda Coffee was the perfect venue for our party, the light was incredibly beautiful, the space was large, and best of all: it was a smallbusiness that had just opened and served coffee from all local roasters! We can’t wait to come back to the space and work out of here on sunny days.

It’s not a party without a little music, and our friend Jenny Banai, set the perfect ambiance with their indie folk-y ukulele vibes. You can hear more of her tunes here! Following Jenny, our good friend Jordan Klassen delighted the party with some of his delightful folk tunes. Check out his music here!

A huge thank you to all the local businesses that donated goods for our door prizes! To pick up your prize, send us a DM on Twitter or Instagram (@localwanderer). Here are the winners!

Cheese board from Union Wood Co: @longrunlisa
(2) Growler, fill, and Greff carrier from 33 Acres: @sarahfelicitys & @serpentbotanical
Postmark Brewing x MyPakage hat, boxers, and Later mag: @aggi.ags
(2) T-shirts from Postmark Brewing: size M @jpcabral, size S @smckennasc
$25 to Meat and Bread: @markpaulstevens
(2) $50 to Charlie & Lee: @kdandy & @dainalightfoot
(4) $10 to Luke's General Store: @mgillette5, @nerdgf, @jaredbraund, & @sandrogynous
(2) T-shirts from Matchstick Coffee: size L @rickchung, size S @joordanrenee
(2) Greeting card bundles from Board of Trade Co/Lost Boys Life: @alysmk & @dvdkyl

And another huge thank you to Josh Yong & Jordan Dyck for contributing photos to this blog post! <3

Other thank-yous, to the people who did the most thankless jobs and saved our butts:

Our bestie and roomie Lindsay Sjoberg for helping with all things music-related, especially when it was the night before and we didn’t know we needed speakers and a PA system…
Jordan Klassen for lending us said speakers and PA system
Chloe Hughes, our amazing intern, for all of her help the day of
Tim Drinovz for attempting to set up the cotton candy machine
Devin Lilly (Notch Coffee) for suggesting the venue and caffeinating us
Sandra Chung for picking up prizes on a minute's notice
Will and the staff of Propaganda Coffee for being so happy and helpful
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Oh, the places you'll selfie...