Throwback Thursday : Dinér En Blanc
The other day I was looking for old photographs from among my copious albums and I came across quite a few years of us attending “Dinér en Blanc” or the “White Dinner”.
I remember that in 2014 I decided to have a backyard tea party with girlfriends and I asked them all to wear only white clothing. Because of this, an article in the newspaper that week caught my eye.. as it was for a big event coming to Edmonton (from Paris!) where everyone was also told to only wear white. It looked like a blast so we paid for tickets to this upcoming but private, huge event.
The idea was that you chose a host or hostess ( from their online website), what you wanted to eat and drink, tablemates (if you had some), and then they gave you the date and the muster point. You see, the event location was a secret!
Several busses were waiting around the city in various locales on the night and depending on where you lived, you would meet at that location at around 5 pm with your table, white tablecloth and chairs, flowers for that table, food- if you were bringing it (you could also order food online to be picked up there) and then the host/hostess would gather the troops onto the vehicles for the eventual arrival at the secret dinner spot. It was SO exciting!
Every single year that we attended ( 4 times ) it rained!
Above ( July 17th, 2014) you can see the two of us (and five hundred of our closest friends….ha ha ha….at Louise McKinney Park. ( I broke the rules with my pink boots. Oh well.)
Above, on September 4th , 2015, it didn’t rain right away…..BECAUSE IT WAS TOO COLD!
I didn’t own a white coat so I layered up as much as I could. But when the sun went down at Churchill Square I sure wished I had a warm coat.
We decided to wear masks that year and met some friends that I still ‘see’ on Facebook. Every year the White Dinner provides live entertainment. That year we had a live band and the year before we had a ‘Cirque du Soleil’ type group. Our tablemates shared their purchased “appies” with us and we all had a grand time downtown.
Another hope for the organizers is that all the tables would ‘lock’ together (they all had to be the same dimensions) so that you would sit beside ‘new friends’ for the evening. But because of the probable rain, Terry devised a shelter for us made out of a huge golf umbrella. This of course came in very handy when it inevitably did rain.
We saw some people we knew there (like our friend, Marie, above) and it was absolutely fascinating to see this many people gathering in white. We saw kilts and stilts and hats with tilts! ( Among many other really cool outfits.)
When it was time to eat we’d all be encouraged to wave our napkins high into the air ….wooooohooooo!
One bad idea? Spilling red wine when everything is white. Oops. (See woman above.)
And at the end of that July 28th, 2016th evening ( and all the Dinér en Blanc evenings) we would all wave sparklers!
July 17th, 2019th was our last White Dinner and my brother, John, and his wife, Nancy just happened to be visiting with us.
We let them know they had to bring all white clothing and of course Nancy said, “I don’t DO white clothes.” ha ha ,but we they worked it out and we were so excited to show them how it all played out.
And of course, we knew it would probably rain. But could we have anticipated the storm of the century? Nope.
When we were waiting for the train that would take us to the event it had started to pour already. But this year we were super prepared. Terry had rigged up an emergency tent that would completely cover us and our whole table in the event we should need it. And when the rain did arrive we were the only ones out of thousands who were truly prepared….
…..except for one tiny detail : the lightning.
We started off having loads of fun and the food was so good. We were even cozy under the tent. But when the loudspeakers announced that we had to all vacate the Football Stadium and move to the upper concourse we were hooped. I was especially disturbed by this news as there had to be at least 100 stairs to get up that platform!
It was a killer and although I even had an umbrella, because it was so difficult for me to climb, I was absolutely soaked by the time I reached the top.
Through it all we all kept up a positive attitude but when it was clear enough to regroup we all just wanted to go home, have a glass of wine, and watch a movie.
We gathered our gear, Terry, actually boarded the train alone so he could drive back with our car to pick us up (so we didn’t have to once again drag all of that gear onto the train) and we went home, looking forward to getting in cozy pajamas.
Nancy headed down to our guest room and the next thing I heard was, “ Um. Laura….your basement is flooded.”
Last one. Indeed.