Capes and Gold Lame

The Midsummer's party is now in it's 9th year.  It would be it's 1oth anniversary, but my sister took a year off the year she was remodeling her kitchen (foolishness, I know.)

The party agenda is as follows:
1. show up
2. get dressed up in a selection of the craziest hat, pants, shawl, dress, scarf, and bling you can lay your hands on.
3. eat amazing, exotic food (I still don't know the name of the Puerto Rican fruit I tried)
4. compliment others on their eclectic outfits.
5. settle in on a section of persian carpet.
6. pick a role from "Midsummer Night's Dream" out of a hat
7. participate in a read-through of "Midsummer's Night Dream" by the light of japanese lanterns.
8. Help clean up a little. (this year it involved throwing pillows up through a second story window.)
9. Regretfully take off your finery (or not so regretfully if you decided on the 3-inch brocade heels or the wool tweed hunting jacket)
10. Head home, sated with good food, good company, and good humour.

*I intended to edit these photos for simple color corrections, and grouping them to better advantage.  However, this week has been insanely busy, and I thought it would be better to publish the pictures as is, rather than publish them a week later.  So some are too cool, some need a bit of cropping, and many of the night pictures need serious exposure and color adjustment.
Pardon Gentles, all.