Meeting Rachel Platten

So if you follow me on twitter @plattenperry then you may have seen that two weeks ago I travelled to London where my idol was filming for a TV show. It was the longest day but turned out to be the best day of my life so far! Here's how the day went...

This trip involved a very quick and impulsive decision to get up super early and travel to London to basically wait around all day for Rachel to walk past. So I got up at 5:45am (*cries*)  and travelled around 4 hours to London. When I arrived I met with my girl Crystal who I met because she was behind me in the queue for Rachel's show in London back in January. We went straight to find the Palladium where Rachel was filming and basically waited outside and annoyed the security guard for hours.
We made a lovely new friend, Becky, who came to wait for Rachel on her own, and we spent the whole day getting to know each other and having a laugh! We've kept in touch and plan to meet up when Rachel does a UK tour.

While sitting outside at about 2pm (we'd been sat there for 3 hours already), we were completely shocked when we just saw Rachel and her assistant Clarissa walking down the street. Crystal and I froze like complete fangirls and just stared as she walked past, oops! Luckily Becky was there to save the day, she shouted her and asked for a photo! She couldn't stop then as she was heading to rehearsals, but she promised to come see us later on. She walked past us shortly after to go back into the hotel studio and rehearse with the dancers. While this was going on, Clarissa came out by herself to collect food and a drink for Rachel, so I shouted her name and asked for a photo. She was so sweet!

When it was getting close to show time, Rachel and Clarissa passed us again and commented on how long we had been waiting and promised that they would come out and see us after the show. As she was entering the building I gave Clarissa the book I'd made with some messages from fans and Rachel shouted "love you guys!" - safe to say I screamed like a small child on Christmas morning.

We weren't entirely sure how long she would be, as the show wasn't due to finish for around 3 hours. So we decided to prepare ourselves for the long wait. We went off to Primark and bought blankets to keep warm and then got a subway. Once returning to the Palladium, we didn't have to wait too long before I saw Rachel coming out of the doors looking absolutely flawless.

She was literally so sweet, she thanked us for waiting and said "my poor babies!" when we told her how long we'd been standing in the cold. We gave her and Clarissa a little gift (the teddy bear that you can see her holding), she signed my phone case, then we each got a photo with her. Just when I was in shock and almost in tears, she looked at me and started to come towards me with her arms open! The weight of the world felt like absolutely nothing when I was in her arms.

She said goodbye and off she went. It was the most amazing experience of my life. Since then, I decided to get her signature tattooed. I already had a semi-colon heart tattoo on my ankle (to represent when I could've given up but I didn't), so the tattooist designed it so that my heart replaced the one that Rachel drew. I've never felt a pain like it, from any of my previous tattoos (it was right on my ankle bone!) but it was 100% worth it.

Whenever I'm struggling, I look down at my ankle and remind myself why I'm fighting. This woman gives me so much strength, I could never express in words how much I love and appreciate her. All I can say is a simple thank you -  for helping me fight and for saving me. Rachel Ashley Platten, I will love you forever.