I was in the dorms back in the 80s, my freshman year. We heard one of our dorm-mates had gotten engaged and there would be a candle passing that night to let us know who. We sat in a big circle in the common room, all the lights out, and a lit candle with a diamond ring tied to it was passed around. We all watched expectantly to see who the lucky girl was who was announcing her engagement. Finally, one of the girls blew out the candle and that announced it was her. Then we had refreshments she provided. In one way, it was a cute, old-fashioned sweet sisterly bonding moment. In another way, it was kinda weird to think we sat around unsure which of the 18-19 year olds in the room had actually gotten engaged. Shouldn't we know if someone was that serious? Especially since the vast majority of girls were 18.
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/23/2014 10:49PM by CA girl.
We do Bachelor parties. You think getting tied up by strippers and being whipped with celery sticks while one of the strippers rode you like a pony is dignified?
Lambda Delta Sigma (the LDS sorority) has a similar tradition, the rose passing. During a Lambda Delt meeting, all the sisters sit in a circle, and a rose is passed around the circle with an engagement ring tied to the stem. The newly engaged sister passes the rose on around the circle at least a couple of times (to draw out the event), but eventually removes her ring from the stem and places it on her ring finger to indicate that she is the one who has just gotten engaged. After everyone has a chance to congratulate the engaged sister, the meeting continues as usual.
Except one night one of our dorm mates had a fake one...it was a gag. And you know what the joke was? She (a TBM) had gotten engaged to her nevermo boyfriend. So seriously...the practical joke was that she had actually accepted the proposal of her "non-member" boyfriend.
It worked like this. I bought an expensive diamond engagement ring. My BYU TBM fiancee put it on a highly decorated candle and left it on the walk-way in front of the door of someone in the apartment complex hoping nobody would steal it.
Notice of a candle passing went out and all the girls in the apartment building brought their boyfriends to the candle passing. The candle was lit and passed around and everyone sang the current romantic songs (12th of never, is the one I recall) until the candle got to my fiancee. She blew it out, signaling to everyone that SHE was engaged and all the girls squealed and all the guys, including me, looked bored.
No boys were allowed at the candle passing ceremonies in the BYU dorms. The ceremonies usually involved about 50 or more girls. There were always rumors and guesses. Many times they thought it was me and my steady boyfriend, because we had been looking at engagement rings together in the jewelry stores. So every time, I got "condolences." Awwww, maybe next time....
Candle passings got to be depressing, when we broke up and I had no boyfriend. Most girls didn't like to go to candle passings, but we were sort of forced to go. One candle passing was especially crowded, and when the candle went by, MY RING was on it--the ring that my boyfriend had chosen for our ring. Sure enough, his new two-month girlfriend blew out the candle, the third time around. That was a rough one! Part of the BYU Freshman experience.
This topic should have been titled "Horror Stories". I started college in 1978 and believed greek organizations were too culty for my tastes. Also where I was, greeks were known for partying and large loud groups of drunks were not my thing. I like small crowds of pleasantly buzzed people.
Well I went to a secular school (Univ of Id) and this was done there too. I had a candle passing in my dorm when I got engaged. It was very nice. That was back in the stone age of 1967.
Can I hijack this thread? In the 90's, my floor at BYU had a different tradition. On his birthday, our floor would strip the birthday boy down to his undies (freshman, nobody had been through the temple) and push him out of the hall onto the emergency landing. We'd then open up all the windows and yell and scream as the poor guy ran down 3 flights of stairs, around the Helaman hall building and in through the front door.
One of my roomies was a football player and in fantastic shape. He was the only person not to RUN while we all yelled happy birthday and made a scene. He slowly strutted around. He had girls flocking to him to pose for photos. It was hilarious!!
Like all good things at BYU, it came to an end and we all got a long discussion about honoring our priesthood duties....
I suppose part of why I think it was hilarious is the difference in perspectives. While we were tossing a guy out in his skivvies there very well could've been a gathering of same-aged girls passing a candle around to see who would be the next child-bride.
I'll leave it up to others to decide which is more adolescent. ;)
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/24/2014 09:51AM by hopefulhusband.
Aaaaach... something I haven't thought of in YEARS. We did that at Ricks in the early 70s. Oh, how depressing it was. We all would just dream that someday it would be us. We were going to be 20 and no ring passing. How humiliating. Gawd, if I'd known then what I know now.
I have looked some people up and I know that several of the very popular girls who dated all the RMs (few at Ricks in those days) are divorced. Really? When they got married at the ripe old age of 18 or 19? Stupiddamncult!
It was done one way (I don't remember the details any more) if somebody got "pinned" (that's sort of like "engaged to be engaged") and somebody was actually engaged. This was in the late 60's. Notices were put up furtively ahead of time.
It was a pleasant experience with other girls on the dorm floor. Everybody knew everybody else and it was always such fun to try to guess who was the lucky one, and then to cheer when we found out.
Maybe it was adolescent, but it's a happy memory. I remember ordering the flowers for the base of the candle when my roommate got engaged. I privately thought that her fiance was a jerk who couldn't be faithful to save his life, which turned out to be true, unfortunately - but a few years later she found someone who cherished her for the remainder of her too-brief life. I'll never forget the candlelight glow on her radiantly happy face.