So, I went to a friend’s wedding this weekend and it was amazing because the “wedding band” was Al Green and Aretha Franklin.

Well, it started out as the City of Hope dinner honoring George Schaeffer of OPI, who was receiving the Spirit of Life Award. But, as many of you who’ve followed George’s illustrious career over the years know, he’s always got a little something extra up his sleeve. So after a meal conceived and prepared by Hubert Keller (you might recognize that name from the “Top Chef” series on Bravo), the presentation of the award, a live in-person vocal accompaniment to a tribute video by Five for Fighting’s John Ondrasik, and a $5.2 million donation to the City of Hope for diabetes research, George married his long-time girlfriend Irina Afzal. (Turns out, George actually got married officially last year, on 11/11/11 at 11:11 but this was the public celebration that he wanted to share with industry friends.)

The annual beauty industry Spirit of Life Award is a tradition at the summer Cosmoprof North America Show, and as its honoree this year, George committed to breaking all industry records with the amount of money raised. George vowed to match dollar for dollar everything raised up to $2.5 million, and, sure enough, through efforts that included a special City of Hope limited lacquer collection, a raffle for an Audi A7, a hard-cover tribute book with hand-drawn illustrations by City of Hope patients, and countless other fund-raising efforts undertaken in George’s name, more than $2.7 million was raised.  

So about that wedding band — the evening’s entertainment were two separate concerts, one by Al Green and one by Aretha Franklin (two of my personal all-time favorites). It was a rocking fun evening. Everyone danced and sang along. We had the entire NAILS crew there (including Ed Bobit, our founder, and Ty Bobit, our president) to enjoy and celebrate George’s great accomplishment.

Since most of our readers were not there to enjoy the evening with us, we hope you’ll enjoy the photos of some of the evening’s highlights. Click here for a complete photo gallery of the awesome night.

As a consolation for the fact that we got to be there in person and you didn’t, we’re going to give away two of the tribute journals from the evening (which George has signed himself). If you’d like to throw your name into the hat to win one of the journals, leave a comment with your favorite OPI story. How has OPI impacted your life or your business? We’d love to hear.

— Cyndy Drummey