Lavalier?
 

One of my friends who is Greek at a different college than myself mentioned something to me the other day about wanting to get lavaliered. I had heard of this practice before from my parents, but I don't know of anyone on my campus who does it (and we are a pretty Greek school). So I was wondering, is the whole lavalier thing something people still do pretty commonly? What exactly does it involve? Is there any way to start or revive the practice on your campus if you think its a worth-while tradition?

What ever happened to the days that lavaliered meant being in an exclusive relationship with your boyfriend or girlfriend?

that is still what it means.

So since you can't haze new members anymore you haze brothers' girlfriends instead?

What you are talking about has NOTHING to do with lavaliering.

Lavaliers are for girlfriends. Just because you're lavaliered doesn't mean you wear his letter sweatshirts, jackets etc.

I don't know why you spouted off on something you never heard of before this post. :rolleyes:

Nothing better to do at work. Duly noted. :cool:

Still waiting on the true definition, 33girl.

My school was pretty lax. We all wore different fraternity letters -- particularly during Greek Week or Homecoming -- whether we were lavaliered, pinned or not.

Lavaliers and letters are not dependent upon one another.

To ealy, it looks like you deleted your first post, but as a side note, your chapter probably got the term "dropping" as some sort of derivative of what lavaliering actually is, a fraternity member giving his girlfriend a necklace with the fraternity's letters on it as a sign of love & commitment -- the piece of jewelry is actually called "a drop". What that's evolved into "ritual"-wise for you all, I can only imagine but don't really want to know.

And to the OP, it's difficult to have the goal of "getting lavaliered" if it's not something that originates from the fraternities on your campus. So maybe your boyfriend can be THE guy to stand up and get it started (if he's not afraid ;)). On my campus, lavaliering happened in a variety of ways, the bf just surprised her on a special date, we had some guys come into chapter meetings with flowers (and some came with a group of brothers, sometimes they sang) to make a big to-do presentation to her, it really depended on how each fraternity tended to handle those things on their side. The girls were just the happy recipients and then we had candlelightings on our side. So talk to the guys and tell them to step up to it! :)

Lavaliering is a sign of commitment to your girlfriend - it's the step that comes before pinning, engagement and marriage.

To the OP - your girlfriend is probably hoping her man will step up and show that he feels strongly about her in this fashion. I think she wants that more than the actual piece of jewelry. :)

Some schools just don't do it very often. If there aren't a lot of people in committed relationships, it probably won't catch on, Greek school or not. It's not something you just do to everyone you date.

At our school, it typically was not a public event. The fraternity guy would ask the equivalent of "going steady" with the woman. He would give her a lavalier on a necklace.

In our house, the girl would slip a note in the president's box telling requesting a candle-passing. It was always a secret as to who left the note. If the candle went around once and she blew it out, she was lavaliered. If it went around twice, she was pinned. If it went around three times, she was engaged.

Only after the candle passing would the boyfriend and his brothers come over to serenade and bring her flowers. If the Fraternity and the boyfriend did anything else within their house, I don't remember it.

I wish we still had the tradition, mentioned in our history, of having a box of candy delivered to the house to announce a pinning or engagement. Apparently a 5 lb. box meant a pinning, and a 10 pounder was used to announce an engagement. Then the candle passing would "out" the lucky pinnee/engagee. Yummmm . . .chocolate.

Sounds familiar. The Phi Mus at Ohio State had three candy dishes in the formal living room. Filling one with chocolate was a laveliere, filling two was a pinning and filling three was an engagements. Oh, how I would long for engagements.

I think more of our traditions should involve chocolate. Hey, it's our color, to start with!