[anongreek]

I would definitely say our recruitment was "full frills" to the max. Every girl in the chapter looked identical (hair, makeup, shirts, pants, etc) for most of the nights. Their skit was, as mentioned before, a mini-broadway production. Having attending pref nights @ 2 sororities, I can say it was the same way for both as far as frills. All of the sisters really put their WHOLE heart and soul into recruitment. I don't even want to know how much they spent, although I will say this, in every chapter there was always some VERY talented sisters that banded together and did a lot of DIY projects for recruitment to cut down on costs. Thank God for talented sisters! I think if you would have told them that you painted a mean banner/ wooden block letters during rush, they would have given you a bid on the spot (kidding -- but the demand for talented sisters was pretty high because it really did help the sorority out with costs). Some sisters from sisters from different sororities would even help their "neighboring" sororities with painting their signs, etc. We went to a smaller school where a lot of the greeks were REALLY good friends, even though they all wore different letters. They really only shut down and got competitive when we were put against each other in some sort of "greek wars" festivities. Other times, it wasn't uncommon for say, Phi Mu's to be helping out Chi Omegas. All of our 'neighbors' houses were literally all a few hundred feet from each other on the row, so we did a lot of labor-swapping for our big days. Which, I still find really special! But, that played a HUGE factor in regulating costs for everyone. The more you could do yourself, the more money you could spend elsewhere.
As for our bid day, I wouldn't say it was FULL frills, but it was somewhere in between. All of the girls had on their matching bid day shirts standing out in front of the house in a big mob, emblazoned with face paint and glitter, each holding a hand-made sign with your name on it. They gave every girl a bag, a cup, a matching bid day shirt, and a paper crown with their mascot on it!
We didn't immediately have a retreat. We had one several weeks later as a "NM bonding" trip. But, the night of Bid Day, we hung out, ate spaghetti and watched a movie at the house. There was cake!

Recruitment/ Bid Day (for me) was such a great experience! It was incredible to see how much work each sorority had put into their festivities for every night.