The weekend after Valentine’s Day, I attended a themed party~ I was very excited about this, because I really love Valentine’s Day not just as a time for romance but as a reason to remind friends that you care. A friend of mine felt similarly, so she decided to host a meetup with that theme. I really wanted to attend, so I cleared my calendar and made travel plans.

Although generally I love being a city-dweller, this becomes an issue very quickly if I would like to actually leave my city. I don’t own a car or have one nearby to borrow. (And car-sharing services are not quite in my budget for meetups–most are $10 per hour on weekends or $80 for the entire day…a fee I’d rather avoid.) There are commuter trains that run to most suburbs, but the schedule is entirely dependent on which station you’re arriving at. I also have to travel to the downtown hub to take these trains, and that is sometimes a long trip in and of itself. Also, the stations are usually centered in the downtown area of the various suburbs, which are often not near where the meetup is actually going on–and it usually isn’t a walkable distance. This time it worked out well because my friend was kind enough to pick me up from the station.

I arrived early, planning to help set up, but everything was almost perfect when I arrived! It was clear that the hostess was very excited and enthusiastic about her party. Everything in her home was decorated with hearts, red, pink, and candies. It didn’t take long for guests to start arriving, and soon the house will filled with cheerful lolita and the myriad of dishes they brought with them. We started to get creative to figure out where to put everything!

I had brought tea, but didn’t realize until I was at her house that she didn’t own a teapot bigger than a one-person serving, so the tea-making had to be done on a case-by-case basis. I was thankful that most people were in the mood for water or soda instead~

The hostess had invited a photographer to the event. He was interested in photographing lolita fashion and wanted to know more about it, so he arranged with my friend to take pictures for free to learn more. He set up his equipment outside, and during the course of the party guests had the opportunity to have their picture taken. It was kinda fun, but the reflector was blindingly bright! I make a terrible model–I never know how to pose and I blink constantly–but he took some really lovely photos of my friends.

I really love meetups of any kind where I have plenty of opportunity to talk to everyone~ I get very excited to see my friends, and I love to meet new girls as well! There always seems to be someone who has just gathered the courage to attend their first meetup or recently discovered the fashion and didn’t even know there was a local community until just now!

I cannot stress enough how much I love my local community. I know that not every lolita feels the same about the other lolita in her area, but I really enjoy spending time with everyone that I’ve met here. ♥ They’re all very sweet people.

We mostly talked and got to know each other at the party. There were quite a few people who didn’t know each other. I felt particularly out of the loop because there were several girls who lived in the suburbs and only attend meetups in the suburbs, so I hadn’t met them before because I rarely get the chance to leave the city. I hope that I can make it to more meetups where I will see them again~ (And maybe they’ll come to the city once in a while!)

Besides meeting other lolita, I also met the prince of my dreams–Bubbles the unicorn. He belongs to a friend, and ever since I saw the unicorn in pictures I knew that I wanted to love it and cuddle it and keep it forever. I can’t obviously do that, because it doesn’t belong to me, but she was kind enough to bring him to the party and let me carry her plush purse around. I could not get enough of that unicorn–probably pretty obvious, since I keep talking about it. Unicorn of awesomeness.

Eventually everyone started playing Rock Band and decided to order pizza, but I couldn’t stay quite that long–the trains back into the city only ran every two hours. (I worked the next day, so I didn’t want to be out very late.) Although I did miss out on some of the fun, I’m sure, I really enjoyed the time that I spent with everyone!

In fact, my usakumya friend, Rose, had so much fun that she stayed at the party without me! Too bad she couldn’t catch the train home on her own!