Miss Houston USA, Contestant style.
Welcome to my blog!!! Thanks for sticking around to support. This past April I had the incredible opportunity to compete in the Miss Houston, USA pageant.
Today I am going to share with you my experience and quick run down of what pageant weekend looked like.
Thursday afternoon as I drove home from work I went over the list in my head of things I needed to get done for the weekend. That night when everything was packed & ready to go it was time for bed & like a kid on Christmas Eve, it was impossible to sleep. My make-up appointment with Kiss And Make Up was at... THE LORD HELPED ME, 5AM ! Get this.. that wasn't even the earliest appointment time, girls started getting hair and make-up done at 4AM, how wicked crazy is that. Our competition didn't start until 7pm so I basically thought it was insane for us to get stage ready so dang early in the day. Thankfully, all contestants were scheduled for touch-ups at 5:30 before hitting the stage at 7, knowing we'd be looking a little rough after a full day of running around.
I woke up DARK & EARLY, haha... but seriously. I literally bolted out of bed and was ready to take on the weekend. I headed straight to the hotel and made my way to the hair & make-up on the second floor with a Miss Houston reserved room. Side Note: Each contestant had the choice to either get just make-up, just hair, or both done... each costing around $200 OR doing it themselves with no other vender/sponosor. Now to be completely honest I didn't feel it was absolutely necessary to get both my hair and make-up done, especially because I feel confident and comfortable doing it myself. However, I know how much I stress out in a time crunch on pageant weekends, making sure everythings in order and I'm stage ready so I felt it'd be worth it. In the end man oh man was it worth it, scheduling an appointment even though it was so early took such a huge weight off my shoulders, plus they did 10x more than I would've done and I probably would've looked naked compared to the rest of the competition. I did though only choose to get my make-up done. I decided early on in the process that money wise and because I feel comfortable enough I would do my own hair. I had a great experience with my make-up artists and learned many new tricks and tips from them that I plan on sharing with you guys on my Tip Tuesday Instagram stories. Even though the experience was amazing and I looked and felt like a princess I think that next year when I compete, spoiler alert.. that I will complete both my hair and make-up. I have chosen this for a number of reason... I don't want to be in a full face the entire day, and I found that some contestants ended up having enough time to do to their own make-up before show time, and lastly simply for the saving money factor. Either way, my make-up artists from Kiss And Make Up did AMAZING and was stunning all weekend long, I truly felt like royalty.
Once make-up was complete I went back home ( I so thankfully by miracle only lived about 10mins away ) and did my hair, competition ready. Check in began at 9AM and I arrived back at the hotel with all my things around 8:45am, once everyone was all checked in we went straight into our orientations to start off our Miss Houston, USA weekend. I remember as I walked in the room and admired the long white drapes behind the stage and THE STAGE everything was absolutely stunning and I could feel all the butterflies.
We went through a variety of speakers as any audience does throughout an orientation. The last speaker in our orientation was our choreographer and once he was done introducing himself we immediately jumped into practice, learning the runway walks and the order we'd be competing in. This process took nearly the entire day, up until 5pm right before touch ups. This is when I learned why we got our hair and make up done so early, and was thankful I did not have to worry about mine during our short break before the competition. By the time practice was over all the girls including myself felt as if we'd lived at the hotel and known each other for years. It was such an organic and positive environment, I couldn't have asked for a better group of girls to compete with, no drama, no negativity.. just smiles and confidence in ourselves and each other.
7PM, Pre-lims began: Every Miss USA pageant starts off with introductions, all contestants this year were to wear a knee high dress all one color, in either white, blush, or mint green. During introductions each contestant walks up to the mic and speaks their full name exuding their unique personalities with their voice and continues down the runway for the first glimpse of the judges, and the judges Us. My adrenaline swept me right off my feet right when I hit the stage, IN A GOOD WAY. I have never felt such a rush of confidence competing before, I truly and honestly think it was because I focused on making the most of the competition and having fun instead of winning. NOW this does NOT mean that when I watched myself LIVE that I didn't critique myself or felt as if my performance was winning material. I saw and learned many things that I need to work on and want to do better on for next year.
Inbetween competitions: Introductions, Swim Suit and Formal we each had around 5-10 minutes to run to the dressing rooms, change, and run back to the staging area... talk about stress!!! Some how, some way we all made it but I don't think I stopped for one second to breathe the entire time. After introductions for Miss and Teen contestants we took the stage in our... I STILL can NOT believe I did this, swim suits! I would never in A MILLION, TRILLION YEARS ever think that I had what it took to strut my stuff on stage in a swim suit... it was nerve wracking but a total blast in the end. The night ended with the formal wear competition, my personal favorite. I love seeing everyones choice of attire and seeing everyones' personaity shine through their dresses and the confidence they have in them.
Before we knew it pre-lims was over and it was finally time to throw the heels, rest our bodies and mentally prepare for interviews the next morning. Thankfully Miss interviews didn't start until 9:30am and mine wasn't until around 12:00/12:30pm so I had plenty of time to relax and both mentally and physically prepare. With all the extra time on my hands I'm pretty sure I re-did my hair about a billion times and I'm also sure that it looked exactly the same every time.
I felt my interview went well, however I could have done WAY better. My downfall was being one of the last contestants to interview & I think I let the nerves and butterflies get to me at the last minute and I was shakey (not my voice, my body) throughout the entire interview. While standing in my interview I could feel and see my body shaking, why did I let my nerves get to me? Who knows.. but you live and you learn.
The layout of this interview was very formal, each contestant lead in one by one walking to a panel of judges, (about 6 or so I honestly didn't count) lead to an 'X' on the floor in front of a microphone, our guide wished us good luck and would walk out of the room. Each contestant is given 3 minutes to answer as many questions as possible from the judges. Once the timer goes off no matter who is speaking the competitor or judge, you are cut off. As I was lead into the room I felt very calm, and excited, I walked up to the judges, greeted them and they said, " Good Afternoon, Are you ready for your time to start?", I nodded my head and said, "I"m ready." Just like that, WHAM BAM my nerves hit me like a pile of bricks. Okay, maybe not so dramatic but this is when I got shakes. Luckily the first series of questions I had prepped for and had confident answers. I feel that I not necessarily ruined it but lost some points during my last question, the sensitive question. I think that I let the pressures of the weekend kind of fall on me as I answered my serious question. My voice began to shake and my eyes began to water. No, I did not full on cry, but I did let my emotions creep through enough to instead of creating an impactful moment it was more of a "aweee" moment. I continued on finishing my answer as strongly as possible and did get my act together and readied myself for the next question. My final question the judge was cut off, they thanked me, I turned and waited for my escort to guide me back out of the room.
Wow... just like that, in 3 minutes I knew I wouldn't be top 15. It was the most stressful and MOST IMPORTANT part of the entire competition and it was over. I felt a sense of confidence but knew I could've done way better. I think that I was mostly bummed out that I had the most amazing pageant interview coach, Jj Smith, some of you may know him from the last Honey Boo Boo wins the crown series. We both worked so hard to prepare me to make a powerful impact with a sensitive subect and I felt I blew it. I am glad that I got the chance to share a personal story and have made peace with this outcome. I learned SOO much from this process, not only about the competition but about myself and who I want to become as a young woman.
Once interviews were completed each contestant was lead straight to their dressing rooms and changed into our practice outfits, a Miss Houston Shirt and black bottoms. We practiced again from the time interviews were over over until it was time to compete again at 7pm. We learned a new runway walk and practiced the on stage question portion for if we were named top 15 or top 5.
The final night all contestants re-appear on stage for one last look in our introduction attire and then top 15 were to be announced. If named top 15, you compete again for semi-finals and if named top 5, you continue to compete in another round for finals as well as complete an on stage interview. How intense, right? I honestly look GREATLY up to the girls who competed all the way to finals AND answered an one stage political question.
Being that I have been a pageant judge for the past 4 years I had already personally picked the top 5, and ended up being correct. Though I did not make it to top 5 or even top 15, I am still so happy for the opportunity I had to compete and made so many new girlfriends from it. My overrall experience, if you can't tell already was amazing. Yes, BUSY, CRAZY, and STRESSFUL, But so so amazing and I'm ready to compete next year
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