Meeting Lana Parrilla

Welcome back, Bishbop's and here I will share with you the story of how I met Lana Parrilla - my queen!

So, where did this obsession begin, you ask? Well, around two years ago I suffered mildly with depression, something not many people know. I was finding it a real challenge to be motivated about pretty much anything in my life; which is a complete shocker for me, considering I've always been an ambitious person. One day, after practically hacking my brother's Netflix account I saw this annoyingly appealing thumbnail for something called 'Once Upon a Time'. To be perfectly honest, I thought it looked exactly like an awful Disney movie ... not that Disney could ever fail in impressing me! Anyway, I figured watching the first five minutes wouldn't kill me at this point and so I stuck it on, in the hopes I wouldn't regret the next 43 minutes of my life ... well it's safe to say that I defiantly did not regret it!

2 minutes and 40 seconds in I fell in love with a certain Evil Queen and my life practically change from there. Many people roll their eyes, tease, or underestimate how much fan-girls say "They changed my life" because for many of us, the person has literally saved our lives. My life, for example; I honestly have no idea where my life would be at this point. To be perfectly honest, I really don't think I would be here, if it weren't for her saving it, those 2 years ago. So, just clarify, never ever doubt a fan-girls love, because I guarantee that under the obsessiveness theres genuine love and hope.

Okay, so, back to the story! I never in a-million years dreamt that I would actually be in the same room as Lana Maria Parrilla, let alone hug her & get photographic evidence!

The convention in question my dear readers, was Storybrooke 3 (SBUK3) and ... wow have we got some gossip on that!

So, to start, the hotel was absolutely appalling. Sooner found it was rated one of the worst hotels in Britain so that was a fun spect of the weekend! "How bad was the hotel, Sophie?" Well, to start it was the end of April, on the sea front, in the West of England and theres was no heating in the room - I literally slept in all my clothes, a onesie and the duvet doubled over, and I was still frozen all night! The lampshade had a whole in it and I'm pretty sure there was a dead mouse or some sort of animal settled under my bed. But, this isn't a bitch fest about the hotel, and the hotel was the least of my concern with all the excitement going on throughout the weekend.

The Friday was supposed to be a relaxed, calm day of registration ... ahahaha *sense the level or sarcasm* I queued for 7 hours in total only to find out that because I had the top pass I could skip all the queues! I then happened to stumble upon two little cosplayers ... ONLY SAW BLOODY EMMA & TILDA! What wasn't fun was when I stood for about 30 minutes having a panic attack because apparently my anxiety couldn't take the pressure of just asking for a photo with them! "But, Sophie, did you concur your fears and get a photograph?"

!!!BOOM ... PHOTOGRAPHIC EVIDENCE!!!

*suck that anxiety*

We then had about a 2 hour, sit down chat, in the middle of the hallway with both E+T and just talked about god knows what! I still pinch myself over what this day was. So ... yeah Friday was very unexpected.

Saturday, mother, Natasha and I got up at 7:30 am to get Meet & Greet tickets for Lana, to be sent away and told they weren't even selling them on that day. But, never the less, I had Lana's first photo op that day, at 10:30 am and I was determined that nothing was going to ruin my day! And so, 10:30 came around, I'm having a completely normal conversation with my mother, when the one and only came walking around the corner, directly in front of me (like at arms length away from me) and looked at me ... IN THE EYES! So, of course when the actually photo op came around I was practically crying.

I walked up to her, almost tripping over the wire, stood in front of her for at least 30 seconds doing nothing, only to realise I'm supposed to be saying what pose we should do, so I'm original and say "let's just hug?" Also, turns out you can get another photo if your mother is ill & they just give you her ticket! Lana then reaches in front of me, tucks my fringe behind my ear and that's the point where I just lost it!

Of course Saturday was the moment that all SwanQueen fans practically died. It comes to Lana's first panel of the weekend and one of the last questions I realise is Tilda. She's just describing who they are, the fact that they're a real couple and from Sweden ... AND THEN SHE DROPES THE METAPHORICAL BOMB! She only goes to say "Emma thinks I'm going to ask a really casual question" ... Bish you can't just spring us with that! So, long story short, they got engaged, I cried, Lana cried ... we all cried!

To round this blog post up, Friday I met E+T, Saturday I met Lana and witnessed Emma & Tilda's engagement, Sunday, I woke up at 4:30 am to camp out to get Lana's Meet & Greet ticket and spent half an hour in a room with her to have anxiety stop me from saying anything!

And now I'm going to be doing it all again next year ... HELP ME!

(My youtube video on my whole experience of that weekend, Part 1)