The final day of the Vancouver International Film Festival was cause for celebration. Over the course of about two weeks, 140,000 people sat in on screenings, took part in discussions and enjoyed cinematic masterpieces from around the world.

I’ll have a full report on the awards ceremony on E! early next week but since I had originally put the party call out on my site, I thought I would update my readers on my dress success.

Thanks to the fine people at Hbc (otherwise known as Th Bay) I was set up with a personal shopper who was kind enough to find me a dress for the VIFF Closing Gala Party. There’s nothing like walking into a store and having someone hand-pick items for you to try - there’s also nothing like them telling you exactly when something doesn’t work at all for you. Thanks to Sarah (at the downtown location) and Neesha, we were able to find a garment that was a deep greenish-blue (”peacock feather” colour), figure-flattering, and that I was totally comfortable wearing.

I’ve always been a huge fan of The Bay, usually because when you grab a designer item (like my Nine West tunic) off the 30% clearance rack and take it to the till, it’s marked down an additional 10-15%. Not sure how that always seem to happen to me but I’m not going to complain.

Full disclosure: The dress is going back today (no, I didn’t purchase it, keep the tags on, etc.), it was just a loaner from Hbc, but thanks to this experience I’ll probably head back to The Bay for my holiday dress needs (there was an amazing black dress number JS Collections that I fell in love with but just wasn’t right for last night).

More disclosure: The gala was great, the food was amazing, however the best part was spending time with my lovely sister. We caught up on her trip to Germany, ranted about strata councils, and enjoyed a nice healthy helping of the Wild Horse Canyon red that kept magically appearing in our wine glasses.