I am so glad to know that it is alive and well on some campuses at least.

My boyfriend and I are both out of college, we didn't date in college, and no one I did date in college was greek so I've never been lavaliered.

But, I've mentioned it to him before and his exact response was: "My chapter stopped lavaliering because every couple that did it broke up less than a year later."

I mentioned this in another thread, but pinning at least (daughter's never mentioned lavaliering, so I don't think they do that, but WC would have to confirm) is still very alive and well and a pretty big ta' do (not in terms of meaning anything more just in terms of the ceremony and tradition) at her campus which, as I said in the other thread, is not a terribly traditional in other regards.

I will say that while she's indicated it can be very meaningful and she definately felt hers was (they've dated quite a while and its a healthy relationship), she thinks SOMETIMES girls can get so caught up in wanting to have that "ceremony" not to mention all the bells and whistles that go with it - it becomes more important than the relationship...if that makes sense. I guess a more minor form of wanting the wedding more than you want the groom.

I wouldn't say that was common -its an expensive endeavor for the guy particularly, so they don't tend to go there unless they're serious, but it happens.

Yup all true. My boyfriend hadn't heard of lavaliers. Pinning is our big thing. It is not necessarily common, but my chapter had one or two each year I was active.

Yeah- her first year there were five I think- she felt a bit bad for girl number 5 - by then they were close to finals, the thrill had worn off, and it well, toned down as spring wore on. Last spring there were only two and she was the first, so she was pretty grateful for that.

^^^Yeah, that's one reason there was a lot of jockeying, frankly, to get your's scheduled first and I think that led to some uhmm "pressure" put on the guys winter term (since their candlepasses/pinnings are normally in the spring), to go ahead and ask already, so they could get the "good" dates nailed down. :)

Actually, picking a Monday (their chapter meetings) to do it was the most stressful part of the whole thing for her (Didn't want it the Monday after a formal or a weekend retreat. Didn't want it on the Monday of midterms week. Didn't want it on dead week or finals. Didn't want it near a big philanthropy event for her sorority or his fraternity.) In other words - wanted all of the attention entirely on HER event, so it was tricky.

Their pinnings were supposed to be a big surprise, but in reality, there was A LOT of time that passed between when the guy asked and when the pinning took place (almost two months in her case), and the girl asks four friends to speak for her - the guy has four friends speak for him, so.....word got out. Plus on their campus the guy is a senior and they usually have been dating a while so that narrows it down a bit. I think she's known every time they were going to have a candle pass and who it was or she at least had a pretty good idea.

They never did 2 candlepasses in a night (that would be hard to be girl number 2 for that), because their pinnings involve a lengthy ceremony (sometimes 2 hours long) after the candlepass and a BIG party all of which is done on the same night, so that was never an issue fortunately.

I would say that one of the absolute most fun parts of being president was announcing a candle pass when people REALLY had no idea who it might be.

I suppose they did miss out on the surprise part which I agree would be fun- but expecting at least 6 girls and 6 guys to keep that secret for at least a month or more is just not going to happen so. I'm sure there were always a few girls who didn't know and the rest all seem to fake it pretty well and squeal appropriately I think.

It didn't seem to cut down on their fun, but I think that was because the candle pass itself didn't really seem to be the main event (I could be wrong on that and maybe she would totally disagree). It seemed to be more about the pinning ceremony itself and the party afterwards.

It's been awhile, but I think laveliering was really a symbol of "going steady" so it wasn't too terribly uncommon. I don't think we had an engagement the whole time I was in school, which I think is a good thing. I believe in the idea that you should only have one major life change at a time, and to the extent that you can control it, you should. Graduating from college, getting a job and (likely) moving away is all the change you need at one time!

But back on topic, the laveliering ceremonies were usually a surprise because you didn't necessarily know when a girl had moved from dating a guy a few times to officially being exclusive. And this would be a tradition that I think you could try to introduce to your campus without too much hoopla. The guy can go out and buy you the $50 lavelier and give it to you without having to involve the whole fraternity if he doesn't want to, and presuming they don't have any rules to the contrary.

We did once around for lavelier, twice for pinned, three times for engaged. And I think the secretary is the one who scheduled them.

My boyfriend just confessed he ordered me a lavalier. I had read a lot on these forums about the tradition, and he's been in DU for years now (still in school so not alum yet), and I'll be the only girl I know in our greek system at the moment with one. Hoping to bring back the tradition !

I love the lavaliere tradition, I just think it's adorable. Unfortunately, at my school, many guys are hesitant to do it, because (at some houses) their fraternity brothers tie them to a tree and throw food at them, until their girlfriend comes to kiss and untie them... if I were a guy, I probably wouldn't do it either.