Our SAG Experience!

Jon and I rushed home after church, quickly changed our clothes into "SAG worthy" attire, shoved in a sandwich, and drove over to the Shrine Auditorium for the Screen Actors' Guild Awards. We arrived at the USC parking garage at 1:45pm, checked in, then waited with the gathering seatfiller crowd. They herded us onto shuttles after a 45-minute wait, then had us stand in a line outside the Auditorium for 30 more minutes. Then, slowly, we proceeded through the metal detectors and up a back staircase to a seat-less holding area above the main auditorium. We could peer through the curtains to look down at the fancy tables and lights being set up for the high profile guests. We waited (standing) for almost an hour and a half longer.

At 4:30, we were again queued up and led down to the main floor, where we lined the walls on the two sides of the auditorium. On our way, we passed Jenna Fischer, Marg Helgenberger, Sandra Oh, and Vanessa Williams. (So exciting!)
From our walls, we could see everything: The television and movie actors bustling in and out of their tables, greeting each other, walking by us to go to the bar, and the video crew making finishing setups on stage.

Jon and I whispered back and forth: "There's Steve Carell! There's Kevin Dillon. There's Joshua Jackson. There's Heather Graham. There's Leonardo Dicaprio!" It was crazy to be there, attending the show (from the sides) with the actors and actresses who paid $1000 per ticket to be there.

Slowly, our fellow seatfillers began to filter in and out of the seats on the main floor. When someone with a headset directed you to a table, you booked it over there, plopped into a seat, mentally noted who you were sitting at a table with, then hopped out as soon as the seat owner tapped you on the shoulder (or looked confused). The process then began again from the sides(unless a nearby seat was also empty, which you could then rush over to).

It was so exciting! You won't believe everyone we saw and sat with there: See my SAG Spottings.

We love L.A.!!!