Once upon time, in a far away land lived a woman by the name of Rebecca. She spent her days slaving away on programming apps for Iphones and solving mystical mathematics problems for her combinatoric class. While lost in a world of new words, and people, she met a messenger who spoke of a glamorous ball scheduled to occur in Vienna. But Miss Rebecca was just a simple peasant girl; how could she afford such an activity? Well, in the dark of the night Rebecca was spooked by the arrival of her fairy godmother, Barbara. Cheerfully Barbara announces, “What are you waiting for? You have a ball to attend, a dress to try on, and a carriage waiting for your arrival.” Rebecca was shocked and before she knew it she was swaying to the music of Strauss and Mozart.
Okay okay so maybe I am being sightly over-dramatic about my so called fairytale weekend, but most of the story is actually true. Though I never saw a messenger roaming the streets sharing the word about the future ball, I did find the ball’s website after a comprehensive Google search of unique things do in Vienna. And unfortunately, I do not have a fairy godmother that gifted me with tickets to the ball, but rather my parents purchased tickets as a birthday present for me. But I did in fact travel to Vienna this past weekend and attend a proper Viennese ball. During the month of February Vienna is known for sponsoring hundreds of balls for various organizations. The ball I attended was called the BonBon Ball and was sponsored by Manner confectionary and various other Austrian candy companies. Essentially the premiss of the ball was to look and dance classy while also enjoying the pleasure of hundreds of free samples of various confectionary treats (so basically my heaven).
The ball was on Friday, so right after school fellow University of Richmond student, Jackson, and I boarded a train to Vienna and within an hour and half arrived to our destination. We met many road blocks before getting to the ball, but we finally made it to our hotel and began to get ready for the ball. Embarrassing enough, we didn’t have time to get dinner, so before our classy ball we had to swing over to McDonalds to gain some energy for a night of dancing. When we arrived at the ball the first thing I noticed was CHOCOLATE!! There was SO MUCH chocolate! After noticing all the chocolate though, I began to notice all the people between me and that chocolate and soon realized this place was packed!! So Jackson and I slowly made our way to our seating in the upstairs parlor.
Making our way up to our table.
Soon we heard the music planning, and we quickly got out on the dance floor. I am proud to say that Jackson and I were the first ones dancing. Before coming to the ball we learned a basic waltz, and that was the ONLY dance experience we had. The rest of the crowd there must have been taking lessons for years because they were amazing! Though it is fair to say we were by far the worst dancers in the room, we definitely were having the most fun! With all that dancing though I quickly realized that this is NOT the event to bring out your highest heels. Within the first couple songs my feet were throbbing with pain, but the excitement and adrenaline is what keep me on the dance floor.
Wishing I could switch shoes right about now!
The event was split into three ballrooms. The smallest (which also happened to be my favorite) was a Frank Sinatra/ Jazz themed room.
They also had a caribbean themed room which mainly had people tangoing.
In the caribbean themed room.
The last dance floor they had was the main ballroom floor. This is where all the main activities were, but the dance floor was also crazy busy. Each hour they would release huge balloons from the ceiling onto the main ballroom. If you caught the balloon then you would try to pop the balloon open in hopes of finding a prize.
Looking down onto the main dance floor from a balcony.
Overall, going to the ball was absolutely amazing, and I could not think of a better way to celebrate my 21st birthday. I would like to thank Jackson for being the best escort a girl could ask for and for helping me feel like a true princess. I would also like to thank my parents for the best birthday gift ever!
Feeling like a princess 🙂
Enjoying all the free candy!
All the candy we were able to take from the ball.
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