Dîner en Blanc D.C. – an Encore!

After last year’s inaugural Dîner en Blanc, D.C. I was eager to do it all over again this year.  But this time, I was going to do it right.  I’d already have the essentials, which we’d invested in last year, and I’d start planning way earlier this time and make an elaborate meal and have one of the ornate, glamorous tables that make it on all the blogs people actually read.

And then I found myself leaving work the afternoon before with no clue what I was going to pack for a picnic, no table decor to speak of and fifty outfits I didn’t really like.

Once again we scrambled to pull things together last minute.  Once again we went minimalist. Once again we moaned and groaned about the hassle of it all.  And once again we had a great time.

As soon as the sweat dries from walking a sizable distance with tables, chairs and a picnic baskets – as soon as you catch your breath from being in close quarters on an escalator and a metro train and another escalator with hundreds of similarly dressed strangers – as soon as you set up your table and pop your bottle of wine… all is good in the world.

This year we ended up at the Carnegie Library in Mount Vernon Square, both iconic and central, making all the passersby who weren’t part of the city’s biggest flash mob picnic wish that they were.

Once again napkins were waved and sparklers were lit.

Masks were dawned and photo ops were taken.

Bottles were danced with and once again, the DJ absolutely rocked it.

For perfect outfits, gourmet meals, fancy lighting and elegant center pieces that dazzle… there’s always next year!

But if by some strange strike of luck, we find ourselves once again a day out and less than prepared I shall remind myself this: none of that is really necessary anyways.  Just show up wearing white with something to eat, plenty of wine, a readiness to bond with your neighbor over the fact that you just paid money to carry your stuff all over the city to an undisclosed location… and you’re excited about it, and a mind-set that can best be described as “ready to dance your butt off”… and the night will go just swell.

Oh, and maybe a Tide pen.

Johanna