OTW, your chapter picture is BEAUTIFUL.

Just charming!!

Misery loves company! I love hearing that whites is a common issue across the board. While I think whites look beautiful, there's no question black is the easier alternative.

Thankfully, like may others, I had to wear white for my high school leadership ceremony in my grade 12 and 13 years and then for graduation, so I actually have 2.

Unfortunately, one of my dresses is now indecently short and my long linen one from HS grad was worn for my university grad and almost every other Pi Phi ceremony. I've lost two buttons off the back over the years and each time I wear it as an alum, my collegians laugh at me and ask me when I'm going to get a new dress. I've got to get new buttons! :rolleyes:

We have to wear white, but we don't have to wear dresses. I have a pair of capri pants that I alternate with various shirts. We do a lot of things where we have to wear white, so we get a lot of use out of our whites, but we also share with each other so we don't always have to wear the same thing. Also, we don't have to wear shoes, because it is so hard to find completely white shoes. Anyway, that is just what Pi Phi does (or at least, my chapter).

Re: oooooh i hated looking for white dresses
 

I added the italics for emphasis. The key phrase is "alum initiate". To my knowledge, Alpha Delta Pi does not initiate married undergraduates. It's not silly, it's part of ritual - which, I believe, is highly touted in other threads. Different GLOs have different viewpoints, and that's fine.

Panhellenically,
honeychile

for my sigma kappa chapter we had to wear white as well. we had to wear a dress or skirt of some sort. no pants. shoes were basically just whatever we could find. in fact we can wear socks if need be. but no barefeet.
i think the no pants thing is b/c we aren't "technically"suppose to wear our badge unless we are wearing a skirt or dress. that's how our founders wanted it. we do wear our badge with pants for regular formal meetings, but that's different.
i was lucky enough to have a white dress that i loved. i already had it when i pledged. i bought it in hs, but not for graduation. ironically enough the school i was suppose to graduate from did require white dresses, but i transferred for senior year and ended up not needing it until i pledged.

shelley j
sigma k

This dress is AWFUL!
 

This has got to be the most hideous dress I've ever owned. LOL! At least it's white... we actually petitioned the active chapter to let us wear togas, but no such luck....

Honeychile - I'm in Omega Phi Alpha service sorority. We don't have any policies about not initiating pregnant or married women. Good thing too! I've gotten really close to this girl, and she has brought SO much to our pledge class. She attended every function, assisted in planning all fundraisers, service & pledge projects, etc. Shes amazing!
She had pledge an NPC group a couple of years ago, but then had to leave school because she was sick. When she came back and approached them about rushing this year, they told her that there were no policies against it, but they thought she would be a bad example by wearing her letters as a pregnant woman, so they didn't think she should. Oh well, their loss O Phi A's gain!! :D

yah know, i almost had to initiate my little in a white bed sheet. long story, but we almost didn't make it to initiation b/c we got lost in indiana the night before.

shelley j
sigma k

I have three white dresses, and I hate all of them. I got the first one from an older sister who has since graduated, and have recently passed it on to a recently initiated sister (very plain A line with tank sleeves, and very short, but it works). I got the second one on summer clearance because I hated the first one, then hated this one even more, long, white, plain, tank sleeves as well. Then this summer, I found another dress at the limited for $15 and I had to get it. I'll probably never wear it to any ritual, it's a very low cut halter, but it's white, and if need be I can put a white cardigan over it. Almost everyone in my chapter seems to have a nice long white prom typedress, and it is my goal to find a cheap one and wear it before I graduate. Then I can keep the pretty one and pass on the others.
Also, there is a dress closet on the third floor of our chapter house and it is filled with some of the ugliest white dresses I have ever seen that old members have "donated" (read- left there) One is even an old 80's wedding dress, but it works if someone can't find anything in November!

We had to wear white dresses for initiation and pinning, one of my pledge sisters bought a dress from Nordstrom's that fell apart right after she put it on. A few of our girls wore wedding dresses. By the way, white hose should be outlawed as well.

Something to consider:

If you're "through" with your white dress - and it's still in good condition -- donate it to a chapter so they can keep it on hand in case there's a need for it. Once in a while, an alumna comes to town & forgets a white dress.

And then of course, there's always ebay.. ;)

Trust me, that can be more difficult than you think. I tried to use ebay to find a white dress for my chapter's installation. Needless to say, it was an unsuccessful venture.

Whoever said to outlaw white hose, I AGREE! I can't find them anywhere. I got off white... it'll look wierd, but the dress is really long, so maybe they won't notice....

I think my mother is ready to kill me. She HATES to sew.

I know I got initiated in January and it's almost impossible to find a white dress. I decided to be crafty and I just bought a white slip ( from like Wallmart), and then covered up with a white cardigan (I'm sure most girls own one of those). The hardes part was finding the white shoes. For those I decided to be even craftier and went to a bridal store and get those shoes that you can dye colors. I use the same dress and shoes at every initiation so far! I think the sum total of my outfit came t $30. :D

I've always been able to find white at Kmart.

I think that says a lot about K-Mart... :)

K-Mart rocks! Definitely better than Walmart.:cool:

I have been spoiled
 

Growing up in So. California we never had Wal Mart until the last 10 yrs. I went away to college to the land of Wal MArt(Arkansas) before the sudden explosion in california. I have been spoiled and i SURELY miss supercenters which we don't have here in calfiornia.

However, I never liked K mart growing up. It always seemed like a junk store. I cannot live or seem to be without a Walmart in my daily life. LOL:) I just wish they would place a Supercenter here in so california so my life would be complete!

I worked at Walmart for two years. I can live without them...:cool:

I used to go to a private Christian univ that had a curfew of 1 am. I constantly missed curfew. We soon figured out that it's better to stay out all night than to come in after curfew and get warnings. There wasn't anything open all night except for Denny's and WalMart. We'd play hide and go seek in WalMart until we could go back to campus or untl we got kicked out... whichever came first. Gotta love Wally World!!:D

Curfew? Ick! :p

i know the feeling...
 

I put myself thru college in my early days working for Wal Mart too as a Customer Service Manager.

my senior year, our chapter advisor and another sister spent an evening complaining about the appropriateness of the white dresses of the new iniatiates! one girl had a dress without "capped sleeves" and they couldn't believe she would dare wear it! lol....i tried to explain to them, that the women were lucky to find anything white! they wanted to put in place guidelines for what the dress should look like. that is fine for people who are already iniated (this way they could spend the spring and summer searching for something nice), but for the women who get iniated in the fall, they are lucky to not be wearing slips!

when i was a junior, we stopped having to wear white hose (thankfully)! i still have both of my white dresses, and i wore it to one iniation since graduation. but i am sure that i wouldn't fit in them anymore! lol, the shoes i had were the shoes i wore to my 8th grade graduation!!!! they were awful with a big white flower on the front! i promptly threw them out after graduation.

Re: i know the feeling...
 

Yikes! At least I was in the Photo Lab... so I couldn't be pulled up front. I did my best to hide in the back with the machines, but somehow, I was always found by customers in electronics, who seemed to think that I just really wanted to help them. :mad:

i totally understand that. i worked in a walmart photo lab that was set by the electronics dept. as well. why the heck do customers think that if i'm sitting at a big machine that says fuji, i'm there to help you find a video game for your kid. ???? am i standing by the register???
okay, i'm fine. just had to get that out. kroger photo lab isn't any better.

shelley j
sigma k

I have to say thankfully I didnt have to wear a white dress for my initiation. although for my high school graduation I had to buy one so I already had one. I was always told I would need it for intiation but of course, I didnt so I have yet to get another use out of it. Some other girls have tried it on who needed it but it still has not been used for an initiation yet. Im still keeping it in case someone ever needs it or we changed our rules to having to have a white dress. But I know how hard it is to find one - I looked all over for one for the graduation and most of htem were too formal! Good luck to all those who have to find them

My chapter doesn't wear white to initiate, but we do wear all CREAM for preference party. That's CREAM, not white... which at times can be pretty annoying. Unless you buy your whole outfit at one time, you're constantly thinking "Does this cream match the cream I have at home?" Luckily, Express, Limited, and Banana are getting pretty good at putting out cream collections.

Also, I've noticed that cream-colored clothes tend to be more conservative (wintery) than white (traditional summery skimpiness). So that's good; I hate when girls are all cleavage at pref parties. Who are you trying to kid? You're not going to hook up with the rushees!

Pet peeve: the shoes some people will wear with cream/white. Black satin strappy heels do NOT work with these colors!! We usually wear camel-colored/beige shoes, and it coordinates nicely.

Haha! I transfered to a private Christian college that had a curfew. The curfew was adjusted with credit hours, so freshmen had it the worst. Luckily, by the time I transfered, I had junior credits, so it really wasn't that terrible.

Anyway, the point was to agree with Wally World trips for fun late at night. I'm sure the Wal-Mart people hated us, but we weren't destructive or anything. It was just that it was the only thing within an hour of campus that was slightly interesting.

LMAO

I HATED having to find a white dress, so I went for a different option...
I wear white boxers shorts and a white t-shirt.
:D

Several things I want to comment on...

White Dresses
I've only seen one girl look good in one. Ever.

My white dress
Fit a lot better during my pinning than now. It's gotten a bit shorter. :p

SK whites rules
In our chapter we have to wear dresses, no skirts. You must have shoes, and the ritual chair would have a heart attack if we would show up in white tennis shoes or flip flops. And they're cracking down on the hose issue too. They are a bit more lenient with pinning, order, and other whites events, but they go by the book with initiation.

White Hose
Perpetuates the marshmallow look. Frustrates me more than the actual dress.

The White Dress "Collection"
Our chapter is only 8 years old, but we have quite the extensive collection of extremely ugly early, mid, and late 90's styles of dresses. I think I'm going to actually start looking at thrift stores for a short, poufy, white 1990 prom dress to pass down throughout my family as a rather funny tradition. ;) :p

Working at Wal-Mart
In Feb. it will be 4 years for me at Wally World, and in that time I've worked almost every job there (even truck unloader in a pinch) :p. In my hometown and at school (both towns have a population under 15,000) it is about the only place to work, so I'm kind of stuck there. The place drives me nuts, but once you've been there a while it's not as bad since you can get away with more. I think it's more the annoying customers than the actual job that sucks. But hey I guess I'm an annoying customer too, we make the late night trips to WM during the week to stir up trouble and check out all those mulleted (both men and women) late night employees.:p

And yes, I was at work at 6 am the day Fri. after Thanksgiving this year hearing everyone in town crab about us not having enough $5 crock pots that were in the ad, and other similar comments. Those of you who have worked there know all about these type of people and how annoying they are!

I always managed to escape working the morning after Turkey Day. I always worked ON Turkey Day, Xmas Eve, New Years Eve.... no matter how far in advance I asked off, it never worked!

white dresses and wal mart
 

first off the white dress issue .....

I was very fortunate about my dress. As i mentioned i found it severely discounted at Ross which i was overjoyed about since it was right before intiation and it was the only white dress i saw for at least 10 stores.

White shoes.... this is funny, my mom and i were at Goodwill looking for a certain type of furniture she wants to refurbish and make alive again. Well i happened to be looking around and came accross their shoe section.. anyhow, i found a pair of satin white dyables brand new never used for $3! better then the ones from my wedding.


Walmart......

I hated being a CSM. i hated to go on an all store search for back up cashiers. You were lucky as photo ppl ,you were the last ones we would grab and it had to be a dire sitiuation to grab photo ppl.
I really hated Support managers and Asst. managers..... i mean come on if you see the front end is is inendated don't stand there and look and complain ...i wish they would get their darn walkie talkies out of their faces and jump on a register!:)LOL

laura

Call me crazy, but I Love Love Love white dresses. They are so pretty and light.

Obviously it'd be hard to find them in November but I already own a pretty white dress and several white skirts. White is one of my favorite colors.

(I know it's not a color)

all in all i personally think that white would look much better than black during initiation. i just look back to when i was initiated and know that it wouldn't have been the same if everyone had been wearing black. i think black is too depressing for our rituals. i like the white look, but hate trying to find nice white dresses.
everyone's nationals should put something in place where they have to help us find white dresses that look nice. something like the white robes would be cool. it would look even more uniform. just a thought.

shelley j
sigma k

ps - let me clear this up really quickly, i'm not revealing any sigkap ritual or anything, i was referring to the white robes mentioned before. i think they would be a good idea.

ugh, for my pledge-in, in Fall 2000, we had to wear not only a white dress, but white nylons, and white closed toe shoes. I had one week from bid day to find all of this stuff. Needless to say my dress was super ugly, and two sizes too big. Only consolation is that everyone else was also wearing extremely ugly dresses that didn't fit them!

FYI, with a little planning ahead, try www.LandsEnd.com. When their spring/summer collections come out, you can find quite a few white outfits there.

Adrienne

I am one depressing sight when I'm in white, let me tell you! Black is much more complimentary to my skin tone and figure. I have a million black dresses that I love. The white dress I have it too big above the chest, too tight on the chest, too big around the waist, and too tight around the hips. Thankfully, I only paid $18 for that monstrosity! :cool:

I thought about donating my dress to the chapter, but then I thought that the future pledge classes might consider it more of a favor if I burn it...
I think I may try and talk the actives into letting our pledges wear off white. Speaking of off white - they didn't even notice the color of my hose...;) All of us went barefoot: no one had white shoes!
I've only seen 3 girls in my life that looked spectacular in white dresses... myself not being one of them, I DEFINITELY want them made illegal! :) Almost anyone can look great in a black dress.
White makes sense in initiation, but it's such a pain.