Shelby's Social Diary
Both guys and gals were pretty in pink at Kissed by an Angel soirée
It was ooh-la-la everywhere you looked at the "Kissed by an Angel — Girls Night Out" fundraiser on Wednesday. A pleasing fashion palette in various shades of pink enveloped the 300 women and VIP male servers at the expansive home of Amy and Peter Shaper, where "pretty in pink" was the basic style guideline.
When Terri and John Havens hosted the first Houston benefit for the Clayton Dabney Foundation for Kids With Cancer at their River Oaks home last year, a tradition was born: A fabulous house and gardens, high-profile gents working as waiters, girls just havin' fun and money raised to answer the last-minute needs/desires of terminally ill children and their families.
Sisters-in-law Raquel Segal and Jennifer Segal chaired the evening that netted $135,000 for the Dallas-based non-profit, which serves families in Houston and throughout Texas. "We're so blessed for so many reasons," Raquel said. "It's so easy to forget to count your blessings . . . so when they made the ask to chair this, the answer was easy."
It was easy as well to round up a glamorous cast call of young women and to wrangle more than two dozen of their husbands to join the fest as waiters. The only requirements of the guys were to wear a pink shirt (surely Ralph Lauren sold completely out of both polos and oxford cloths) and be a good sport about pouring the pink champagne for the ladies. It was, in fact, great fun to have Andrew Segal, Justin Segal, Neil Bush, Ray Childress, Michael Holthouse, Sean Hurwitz and the like serving. Even John Arnold, one of Houston's wealthiest individuals, donned his pink shirt and played server for the night.
The party spread from the beautiful interiors (the creative talents of interior designer Kara Childress on display) to the pool terrace, the summer kitchen and garden.
Diversions abounded throughout the vast Mediterranean-style villa including a photo booth, informal modeling by Saks Fifth Avenue and Chanel makeup artists from Saks demonstrating the latest maquillage. And then there was the bountiful buffet by A Fare Extraordinarie, overseen by Karen Lerner who made sure that the tables were well stocked with her amazing chicken nuggets, egg rolls, heart-shaped grilled cheese sandwiches and other fare. Don't forget the hunky guys in pink muscle shirts — eye candy for the female contingent.
Among the ladylike contingent were Jill Deutser, Gina Bhatia, Marita Fairbanks, Lisa O'Leary, Anita Gaylor, Kara Howes, Stacey Soriero, Michele Clements, Claire Cormier Thielke, Rosemarie Johnson, Laura Arnold and Lisa Eads.