Here is what happened with my chapter...
A couple of national officers and a traveling educational consultant (TEC) came in for a weekend and did our ribboning and pinning ceremonies. The TEC then stayed with us for several weeks and oversaw our new member education. Meantime, we continued recruiting new members, held a charity fundraiser, etc. After about 8 weeks, we were initiated by national officers and sisters from a nearby chapter. We were still a colony at this point, since there were only 11 of us and AEPhi didn't want to charter us until we had 25 members.
The following fall, we got 11 new members through formal rush. We saw to their new member education. When the time came for their initiation, the national president and some other officers came up to do their initiation and our chartering ceremony. (Even though we only had 22 members, they chartered us anyway

)