How to bring back Lavaliering
 

This is my first post, so please be kind :)

I am an undergraduate at a small southern school. We are very Greek orientated, but for some reason the tradition of lavaliering has been lost. However, I find it extremely romantic and wish for my boyfriend to lavalier me. We are both Greek and have been dating for a while. I want him to do it on his own, but I know he probably doesn't know what it is. We are serious and have talked about engagement, but i don't want to skip this step!


Thanks ladies!!

Does your campus do pinning instead? Or lettering? Or is there no greek sign of a serious relationship?

If there is no symbol, I don't think you will be able to bring it back without talking to him about it. I suppose you could say something along the lines of "I just heard about this thing called lavaliering. Have you ever heard of it?" Then tell him about it, say you think it is romantic and leave him to collect the dots. However, unless you flat out say you want one, there is no way to guarantee that it will happen. Even if you do explain it, he may not want to. Either due to pressure from his brothers (some get tied to trees, some have other traditions) or his nationals may not allow it.

That bold part was absolutely my experience, too. To me, it seemed more akin to wearing a guy's class ring in high school.

In reference to the bolded... is this the correct saying or a typo? Just wondering if I have been saying it wrong all this time? lol

Typo. It's connect the dots, not collect. I took a break writing a paper and posted earlier. Apparently, I needed a little bit more of a break than I realized.

I completely understand that feeling! lol. I was just worried for a minute that I was being one of those people that completely mess up a phrase, like people that say "for all intensive purposes" haha

Once upon a time when dinosaurs competed with the students on my campus laveliering was a way of saying "we are going steady", pinning (the girl getting the guy's fraternity pin) meant we are more than going steady but less than engaged.

DaffyKD

I went to a school where lavaliering was unheard of and probably was seen as corny to those who had heard of it. I had my own and my sisters thought it was weird (take the girl out of the South...?).

That said, I'm not sure how cool I am with lavaliering. It's a college girl's version of a promise ring (remember the girls in HS who got promise rings?) and I've heard about people seriously act up over them. You can "talk about engagement" all you want but a lavaliere isn't going to bring you any closer to actually being engaged or getting married.

Relationships are not like miniature golf. You don't have to complete one step to go to the other. Believe it or not, there are people who just up and get married without any engagement (and stay together until they both croak).

I'm sure you could harangue and coax him into giving you a lavalier, but it would mean absolutely nothing to him - and would be nothing but false security for you.

If it's something you want I'd mention it to him. But you do need to understand he may or may not be into it or he may not have it in him to do the thing. My husband was dragging his feet about proposing and when I finally dragged it out of him, he told me his proposal could never live up to my imagination. So we got engaged right then, while shopping at Home Depot. He's a great guy and we are great together, but if I allowed myself to be heartbroken because he won't do this kind of thing (and a surprise party or anything like it is NEVER going to happen), I'd have ended up breaking up with him. I think this is part of the maturity that comes with getting married older. My marriage is worth more than a public romantic gesture.

I advise at a year-old chapter, on a campus with a thriving but fairly new Greek system. The members just love hearing about old traditions, and we recently discussed candlelights (which they do, but just for engagements). They had no idea about lavaliering and pinning, and they just loooovved the whole idea. I'm all in favor of keeping some of these sweet, old traditions.

If hints don't work, you can always ask for a lavalier AFTER you're married, too. :)

I recently returned from a reunion of 42 of my sorority sisters from 1964-69 and almost every one expressed how exciting passing the candle was in their memory. In our chapter it was passed once for being dropped ( lavaliering) twice for being pinned (extra special because that meant we had a fraternity get together) and three times meant you were engaged. What a fun memory but I'm afraid as Daffy KD said, "It is back when the dinosaurs roamed".

We had the same routine, Just Interested. If a sister was pinned, her boyfriend's fraternity came to serenade us. Serenading is still alive and well where I advise, and the girls love that, too. A fraternity will come to sing just as chapter meeting is getting ready to start, and it's so cute to see the girls blush and giggle nervously...things do change, but some things stay the same.

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.