Pastoral Picnic Meet Recap

A member of my regional comm hosted a beautiful picnic meet up on the last weekend of the Lilac Festival at Highland Park. Many members of the comm got together for a potluck style picnic in the park. The weather was luckily very beautiful. I brought baguettes and flavored goat cheeses. I love these cheeses, they’re very delicious and affordable. I wanted to bring a savory option because I know most people tend to gravitate towards sweets since they’re easier to make in large quantities and easier to transport. Since the host was brining sandwiches, I opted for bread and cheese. I also brought assorted bottled lemonade since no one mentioned bringing a drink. I recently bought a small cooler too so it was great timing for me to bring something like this. I also grabbed my mini cheeseboard and cheese knives as well as a big bowl for my bread slices.

We ended up with a great spread of food and treats. There were cookies, French macarons, fruit, sandwiches, hummus, salmon spread, breads, cheeses, etc. Everything was delicious!

Unfortunately, I got there a bit late. Between the festival parking restrictions, traffic, and construction, I drove around for close to 20 minutes before finding a place to park my car. Followed by a 0.7 mile trek with my cooler and all the other picnic supplies. I was pretty worn out and sweaty by the time I actually got to the picnic spot. But there was still plenty of time to enjoy some food and pass out lemonades to my fellow picnic goers.

I struggled with a coord for this event because I truly wanted to wear a specific OP that just doesn’t quite fit in the arms, but it was the perfect aesthetic for a meet like this! I spent four weeks leading up to the meetup focusing on slimming my arms, and while progress was made, it wasn’t enough for me to be comfortable. So, I had to opt for something else.

Coord Breakdown:
JSK and Headbow: Glitter Tale
Blouse: Lucky Star
Socks: Roji Roji
Bag: To Alice
Necklace: Starcrossed Lovelies
Wrist Cuffs: Little Ghost
Brooches: Lemon Honey, Hymn
Rings: Alice in Halloween, Offbrand
Earrings: Made by me
Shoes: Offbrand

I really like this dress, it’s quite comfortable and the lace trim on the bottom is really lovely on this piece. The headbow is a tad floppy. I opted to wear my hair in these big buns to help support the massive headbow, I wish it was just slightly smaller in size.

After eating and enjoying our food and company, we went down into the Sunken Gardens to take photos. It is such a lovely place for pictures. Unfortunately the horror movie mirror had been moved since my visit on Wednesday.

After we finished taking photos, most of the group left. But, a few of us stayed behind to check out the festival. I had already seen the festival earlier in the week but I wanted to give my friend that I drove there a chance to see it. It was VERY crowded but we had a lot of fun. We spotted a teenage girl in a simple beginners lolita coord and ran over to introduce ourselves to her and her mom and tell her about the comm. I hope she will come to some meet ups. It was a nice interaction and I would love to see her thrive in the fashion. Many people stopped us for photos and to ask us about our clothes. We got boba and at the end as we were driving away I spotted Emily’s missing ribbon on the sidewalk from the car! So the day ended on a good high note.

I had a really nice time and I’m so grateful to Emily for hosting such a lovely meet up. I am polling to move the date of our ILD meet to allow more people to attend so that post will come late in June, stay tuned!