Last spring, in a moment of madness, Jess agreed to go to a Pride and Prejudice ball with me in October. He hates dancing and has little interest in Jane Austen so I was shocked but excited. I couldn't wait to go to a real ball! We signed up for dance lessons to learn English country dancing and we started researching Regency period costumes. As the date approached, Jess started to get more interested in his costume. He really wanted to make sure it was as accurate as possible. We learned that an easy way to make a Regency period coat is to take a trench coat and cut off the front. He shopped around at Goodwill (one of his favourite pastimes anyway) and found the perfect coat, as well as pants and shoes. I changed the buttons on it from plastic to brass and cut off the front as per his instructions. We rented a gold vest, bought him some tall white socks and I shortened and tapered a pair of beige dress pants and voila, he was transformed into my own Mr. Darcy! And much to both of our surprise, he actually enjoyed the dance lessons. We learned five different dances and when the ball arrived, we certainly weren't perfect but we were able to dance the night away without stepping on anyone's toes. The ball was held at Edmonton's poshest hotel, the Hotel MacDonald, in one of their beautiful ball rooms. There was live music, delicious food and lots of fun people! We had such a good time doing something new and wonderfully silly and now that we already have the costume and know the dances, plan to go to more - the next one is a Sense and Sensibility ball in March.
