When I found out years ago that Universal had a yearly Celebration of Harry Potter, I knew I had to go someday. I mean, three days dedicated to my all time favorite saga, surrounded by other mega fans like me? It was my #nerddream.
My time to attend finally arrived, and I knew I had to make the best of it. That obviously meant cosplaying some of my favorite characters, and since I already get to dress as a Hogwarts student every day for work (which in itself, is another nerd dream come true), I knew I had to take it a step further.
For day one, we decided to dress as Harry and Hermione from the battle of Hogwarts scene in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2. Unfortunately, we don't have any red head friends (applications accepted at this time), so we had to leave Ron behind (sad face) *Side note: I'd like to take a second to say what an amazing husband I have for going along with all of this. I know it isn't necessarily his thing, but he made the best of it!*
I knew I didn't want to spend a lot of money creating these costumes, so we agreed on making everything out of thrift store finds and things we already had. It took some weeks and many (many) trips to Salvation Army and Goodwill, but it was all worth it in the end!
The day finally arrived, so after putting on lots of makeup and working on our wounds, we headed out the door!
We stopped by the entrance for a Universal picture, because we are basic like that, and do you really go to Universal if you don't get a picture holding the Universal globe? I didn't think so.
We had a failed attempt at trying to enter the area where the meet&greets with the actors were. Apparently, you need to spend hundreds of dollars to do that?? Who would have thought lol. In our defense, we didn't know that's what was going on in there, but we still got kicked out.
We decided to stop by the first expo. The lines for everything were long and we don't have enough patience to wait that long, so we wandered around and took some pictures.
After, we decided to head to Diagon Alley for some lunch at the Leaky Cauldron. But first, we had to stop to take some pictures with our favorite double-decker bus (scroll through to see all the pictures!)
Before we move on, let me tell you something. I am obsessed with the portrait mode that the Iphone 7 plus has, and now that I have discovered it, I will never go back to old plain phone pictures. Here's one of the many pictures we took using that mode. Doesn't it look so professional?
At the Leaky Cauldron, we ran into Luna Lovegood with her Lion hat! One of my favorite things about the celebration was seeing the amazing costumes some of the other fans put together.
After lunch, we tried some of the spells at Diagon Alley for the first time (I got my first interactive wand for Christmas and we had yet to try it!), drank some butterbeer and just enjoyed the atmosphere. We were really bad at the spells, but a great time was had nonetheless! Scroll through once again to see some pictures from our time in our favorite magical street.
We couldn't leave without visiting Knockturn Alley as well! After all, we were headed to a battle against the Darkest Wizard of all times, perhaps we could find something useful (okay, I'll stop, I'm really nerding out right now).
So to Hogsmeade we went and we boarded the Hogwarts Express. Just kidding, we walked the backlot, the wait for the train was 40 min.
I'd also like to take a second to point out the purse I wore. I tried to replicate the purse that Hermione wears with some fabric I cut from pillow cases I bought at thrift stores. It is not perfect and it is the first thing I've ever attempted to sew, but overall I'm pretty happy with the outcome and a lot of people noticed it!
Finally, to the castle we went. One thing I love about our jobs is that most of our coworkers love Harry Potter as well, so as true fans they appreciated our costumes and the time we put into them! Shout out to Kasia for managing to take a picture with no guests in it.
After a very intense battle between good and evil (or more specifically, between us and the extremely large crowds), I managed to take some of my favorite pictures from the day of my favorite Harry in front of Hogwarts. And again *gasp*, that portrait mode though.
To end the day, we went back to the other side (and this time, we did take the train), and visited the other expo. We saw some amazing costumes I totally forgot to take pictures of, and nerded out some more over all the Harry Potter paraphernalia around me. Also, I waited in line for 15 minutes to get a poster that later at night Brennan laid on and completely destroyed *sight*.
After that, we decided to call it a day. We were tired and it was getting really cold, but mostly, the main reason to leave was because we found out there was a Cici's pizza close by and, well, pizza, do I need to say more?
Mischief Managed for Day 1!