Party Picks is big at my campus now.

I know this is from the first page, and this thread is on page 7 now, but I do have to comment on the "condom club". My alma mater- Ohio University does have a student run "condom club". They are dedicated to 1) teaching people the correct way to use one 2) providing them to students at cost. In order to get them at cost, a student sits through a presentation (it used to be called condomology) that talks about signs and symptoms of STDs. It is sponsored by student health services.

I don't see it has a huge negative, in fact they try and get the word out about being as safe as possible.

everyone in U101 has to go to a presentation on that at South Carolina. we have the #1 awareness programs from the school and percentages have been going down because of it supposedly.

I don't see whats wrong with getting the people informed either, believe it or not i bet a decent amount of people go into college not knowing how to use a condom

It must be, or else a big school thing. We had professional photogs on Pledge Pickup night (aka Bid Day) but that was it - and those events were generally pretty sedate compared to regular mixers (no scaring the newbies!!). When the proofs came back you ordered what you wanted. But at mixers and formals - NEVER. In addition to the privacy issue, we didn't have the money, and we didn't have such things as "house accounts."

We called them Joe Photo and had them in the Midwest in the late '90s. We still had proof sheets that were sent to the house and we would be charged if one of the (usually assumed embarrassing) photos was torn off the sheet, so that helped keep the lewd photos to a minimum.

My memory (which, granted, is not always perfect) is the opposite of this -- I actually don't remember any formal pics at Bid Day, but we did always get professional pictures at our formals/semi-formals. I have a whole bunch of those rectangular photos with the big white space on the bottom that had the date/place/name of the formal, etc. I think it was similar to what someone mentioned above, huge proof sheets came back and we had to take turns combing through them to find the ones we were in and order those and the versions of the group pictures we liked... I remember one that caught me mid-limbo (don't ask). I need to dig into some boxes and find my old albums...

We had photographers at bid day, homecoming (the parade) and at the major date parties each quarter. We didn't usually have them for mixers. From what I remember, the photographers were usually fellow students that worked for the photography company (usually photography majors- go figure). We did have one photographer that was obviously a fine art major- the pictures were all at odd angles and very "artsy". Not something that a bunch of sorority women necessarily apreciated in their formal pictures!

We had a photographer who came in whenever at least two sororities or fraternities wanted them within two days. That meant Bid Day, Bif/Little Day, All Greek Mixers, Homecoming, Greek Week, Formals, and whenever two mixers happened within two days. That made it wise to ask a few other GLOs when they were planning "big" events. If I remember properly, we got an Index sheet & ordered from those; the Spirit Chair would be allowed to spend x amount on them. They cost roughly $1 each, 6/$5. I can't remember the name of the company, other than we dealt with a guy named Mark from Ohio.

After reading nittanyalum's post, they must have used the same company - or the same style.

We also had professional photographers come in for official functions.

Back in our day, the Jacket Man would come once a month or so and show his clothing samples so we could place orders.

Nah. Our school had over 50,000 students, about 2500 Greek.

The photographer that came around the most was a pervert named Warren. He loved to put couples into really strange poses. Not indecent, just strange.

We had a photographer at our semi-formal and formal dances (1 in fall, 1 in spring) but that was it... not at every mixer. We paid them a small fee and they made most of their money in the pics that we ordered from them. The pics would have the event info at the bottom usually, embossed on it. It's nice to have those now because the date and everything is right on there.

DA! I meant a big school thing. Editing my post....

I remember Jacket Man! He probably hit both of our campuses on the same trip! One sister snatched up a wonderful t-shirt from him and I have never been able to find one like it again. Someday....