Welcome Summer Interns

Hello Everyone, Lorina here 🙂

I just wanted to do a quick introduction to how this all started! It has been my dream to work along other girls and do something more than we are capable by ourselves. I am so humbled and joyful to say we have a full team of interns for this summer! So thankful for them and excited to work together. Celena, one of our bloggers, wrote about the day but first let’s start with a beautiful video made by Alyssa. Enjoy <3

The tides for us had been changing & it was time to take the brand to the next level by expanding the team for summer 2016. Within a few weeks, a handful of ladies with different skills to bring to the table were selected to be the new official interns for Grace Belle.

With so much to prep for and plan out, the first thing on the agenda was to have all the girls come together to meet for the first time. We were hitting the ground running, some of the staff already had assignments as we met like our photographer and videographer. Shout out to our photographer Jessica and videographer Alyssa who did an amazing job capturing the day!

The meeting took place bright and early Saturday morning on May 7, 2016 at the sweetest little coffee shop called The Aussie Bean, located in Old Town Orange. Lorina prepared some welcoming gifts for the team which consisted of intro packages, customized mugs, a tote bag, confetti tubes and a party hat, all set up along the café’s center table where we sat.

The first part of the schedule was the “Welcome. Get coffee. Introductions.” hour from about 10:00 –11:00 a.m. Each of the ladies took turns introducing themselves and stating their positions at Grace Belle while sipping on their coffees.

After the introductions were finished, the next hour was dedicated to everyone going over their reports and to-do list updates. The team had great ideas that we each shared and built off of. The energy was so exciting, to say the least! We discussed new projects, ways to improve the website and local places to check out.

After about three hours of getting to know each other and sharing ideas, it was time for our headshots! This part was neat because The Aussie Bean had a perfect white wall to serve as a background for us during the photoshoot. We used props that appealed to our personas/positions at Grace Belle. Some brought cameras, some wore party hats and some even used leaves! The photos turned out great; props are always so fun to use!

We wanted more diversity to our pictures so we decided to head over to Chapman University to continue the photoshoot. (Well, after we moved our cars of course)

There was a three hour parking limit in the lot where we were at, so we needed to move them! Naturally, we got clever about this. We decided to grab a buddy and switch parking spots with each other –talk about strategic efficiency!

The experience was actually really funny and slightly challenging. We had groups of girls standing in different parking spots to “reserve” them until another girl would arrive to park her car. We were running back and forth to different spaces in the parking lot to claim them before other cars swooped in. We probably looked like crazy people hahaha. The whole process took about 25 minutes, but it was so worth it. (No tickets woot woot) Go teamwork!

Once our cars were parked, we headed off to Chapman. It was a short distance of a walk and definitely a nice one considering where it was at. Old Town Orange has the cutest arrangement of local shops / restaurants and lots of trees so the view never really got boring.

When we arrived on campus it was part two of our photoshoot. There was lots of grass and a large staircase we got to use as a setting. The nice thing about it being a Saturday was that there weren’t a lot of people on campus so taking un-photobombed pictures was easy. The only challenge there came when we realized we needed someone to take our group picture. Luckily, these nice people came walking by and they took our picture for us.

We swirled in circles, we posed silly, we hugged and we even jumped –high school musical style ! Then we headed deeper into the campus to finish our round of portraits. We utilized the nice scenic views the campus had to offer one girl at a time. Before long, it was a wrap on the picture session and time for some food.