When I was 14, my family went to Las Vegas. We were sitting in the hotel lobby and saw beautifully dressed ladies escorted by dashing men in uniform, and I asked one of them what they were all dressed up for.
"The Marine Corps Ball," she responded.
What a a fairy tale, I thought. I hope I marry someone in the military so I can get dressed up and go to balls!
Lol. Aaaaaaanyway....
I quickly forgot all about the experience (and certainly didn't go hunting for a man in uniform), started dating my now-husband a few years later, and now 15 years after I fawned over the sparkling Marine couple, I finally got my wish. We went to the ball.
We've been an Air Force family for a few years now, but this was the first opportunity we had to attend the annual ball. I was so excited. I rented a dress from renttherunway.com and felt like a million bucks. My husband wore the formal mess dress for the first time and I thought I would die over how handsome he looked. Then we sat in traffic for an hour, because someone had the brilliant idea to schedule this shindig at 5:00 on a Friday in downtown Honolulu. But once we got there we had a great time. The venue was beautiful and everyone else looked amazing. It was like prom, but with much nicer dresses (and no limos that I saw). We even got to have our picture done, and it happened to be in the same pose as our 12th grade Homecoming Dance photo, which made for a cute comparison.
The food was great, albeit not quite worth the exorbitant ticket price, the guest speaker was engaging, and the band was wonderful...at least for the few songs we heard before I realized I had dropped my ID and credit card and we left to go find them.
And the cherry on top of the evening was when I overheard someone marveling at how nice everyone looked and wondering where we were going. I remembered my 14 year old self and smiled at how life has a way of foreshadowing itself.
"The Marine Corps Ball," she responded.
What a a fairy tale, I thought. I hope I marry someone in the military so I can get dressed up and go to balls!
Lol. Aaaaaaanyway....
I quickly forgot all about the experience (and certainly didn't go hunting for a man in uniform), started dating my now-husband a few years later, and now 15 years after I fawned over the sparkling Marine couple, I finally got my wish. We went to the ball.
We've been an Air Force family for a few years now, but this was the first opportunity we had to attend the annual ball. I was so excited. I rented a dress from renttherunway.com and felt like a million bucks. My husband wore the formal mess dress for the first time and I thought I would die over how handsome he looked. Then we sat in traffic for an hour, because someone had the brilliant idea to schedule this shindig at 5:00 on a Friday in downtown Honolulu. But once we got there we had a great time. The venue was beautiful and everyone else looked amazing. It was like prom, but with much nicer dresses (and no limos that I saw). We even got to have our picture done, and it happened to be in the same pose as our 12th grade Homecoming Dance photo, which made for a cute comparison.
The food was great, albeit not quite worth the exorbitant ticket price, the guest speaker was engaging, and the band was wonderful...at least for the few songs we heard before I realized I had dropped my ID and credit card and we left to go find them.
And the cherry on top of the evening was when I overheard someone marveling at how nice everyone looked and wondering where we were going. I remembered my 14 year old self and smiled at how life has a way of foreshadowing itself.
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