Last week I hopped on a plane and headed to New Orleans for the Rising Tide Society Leaders retreat! It was my second retreat and my second time in New Orleans. It was an even better trip because my co-leader and photog bestie Suzy Goodrick took the trip with me! We arrived Saturday and headed straight for the beignets, the sweetest couple gave us a tip (while waiting on the cable car, so New Orleans!) to head to Cafe Beignet over Cafe du Monde and they were massive and wonderful! I overdid it on sweet, powdery goodness and vowed to have a salad for dinner. I have to agree, Cafe Beignet had the best beignets!

We stayed at the Henry Howard Hotel in the Lower Garden District. This hotel is modern, stylish, and Southern; I was obsessed. It was also a quick walk to the conference at The Pontchartrain Hotel (also an awesome place to stay) and Magazine Street, which has the best little cafes and restaurants. We later stopped for drinks at The Ace Hotel, which would also be a fun place to stay while in New Orleans!

Our lobby was the cutest place for some headshots! And roaming Bourbon street with a coffee stout wasn’t so bad of a backdrop either!

Oh just a baritone above the bed, this is the city of live music and it was fun just to wander and hear different musicians.

Our conference was two full days packed with incredible speakers. Mary Marantz made me cry although I vowed I wasn’t going to let that happen! I didn’t really photograph our speakers other than a few BTS for our local Tuesdays Together Instagram account. I was just soaking in all the knowledge to bring back to our Phoenix groups!

All that greenery in NOLA, I was in love!

It even rained a little while we were there, these two desert dwellers were really into it.

What an incredible trip and time to get jazzed about the coming year for our local Rising Tide Society groups! New Orleans, I can’t wait to bring my little family back to your beautiful city, Suzy girl thanks for being my wing woman, eating all the strange foods and way too many sweets with me, and also understanding the intense need for afternoon coffee! Chris, thank you for holding down the fort and loving our girl so well, I missed you all SO MUCH. And thank you to the incredible sponsors, speakers, Honeybook, and Rising Tide Society founders and leaders for an unforgettable weekend!

Until next year…. Image below credit to Madison Short Photography and you can spot us all the way to the right!

If you are itching to learn more about what the heck The Rising Tide Society is you can learn more here.

If you are local to the Phoenix area we now have FOUR local meet ups to serve creative small business owners, and you can learn more & join your local group by clicking here!