Big smiles, big personalities and big business networking — yes, it’s everyone’s favorite feature in The Voice-Tribune: party photos! Boulevard picks through the pics, choosing our favorite coverage.

The cosmos presents so many mysteries: How did those Easter Island statues wind up there? What is dark matter? How does the Voice-Tribune choose which parties to cover?

We ask after noticing this week’s 10 parties include The Vein Treatment & Aesthetic Center’s annual summer open house on June 29. “The well-attended event,” we learn, “featured exciting prize drawings as well as discounted pricing on an assorted array of Vein Treatment & Aesthetic Center products. Various reps were also there to answer any questions attendees may have, and all enjoyed plenty of wine and light hors d’oeuvres.”

With all due respect, as people say when they actually mean the opposite, Boulevard wonders whether that event really qualifies as the crème de la crème of Louisville’s social scene. Yet, props to the 16-year-old clinic for silk-purse marketing its vericose and spider vein treatments.

The center, according to its website, “coddles patients with a smorgasbord of cosmetic services in a cozy skin-clarifying facility. During your microdermabrasion, a skin savant will gently sweep perished skin cells under the closest rug, then set an antioxidant-rich ultrasonic infusion to the task of moisturizing arid flesh and rejuvenating the body’s roughened husk.”

To be sure, we’re a wee taken aback by the juxtaposition of “smorgasbord,” “perished skin cells,” and the “light hors d’oeuvres” served at the clinic’s open house. But that’s why we’re not in public relations.

Now, to our party pics pick!

Hands down, it was the June 30 celebration at home furnishings store Dwellings for its new location at 139 Breckenridge Lane. Of Tim Valentino‘s 32 pics, guests Palmer Cole and Tyler Freeman in photo No. 19 were the week’s best.

No grand opening would be complete without a ribbon-cutting ceremony, and Dwellings and the St. Mathews Chamber of Commerce didn’t disappoint — leading to our last mystery of the cosmos:

Where do all the chambers get those giant ceremonial scissors to cut ribbons? Turns out, there’s an actual company, Golden Openings of Urbandale, Iowa, that sells them — along with golden shovels for groundbreakings, plus all the other accoutrements of commercial ceremonies. Their biggest working scissors are 40 inches long and sell for $199.

Golden Openings even sells a 17-page book for $19 that “guides you through the ribbon cutting from start to finish. This book provides a detailed description of the items you’ll need to consider to have a first class ribbon cutting!”