Dapper Hour & Femme Meet-Up
Carmen: After the wedding, B and I had a senior class-style photoshoot. She got a pine cone stuck to her ass, though, which was a lot funnier. As we were laughing about that, I asked her to do what she does best: pantomime laugh. Kaylah is quite a competitor, though, so they faced off.
Mey: This year’s Femme Meetup had more femmes than ever before, and a wider variety of types of femmes. It was right after Bren and Carries wedding, so everyone was already dressed to the nines, expressing their own personal take on what Femme means to them. I’ve said this before, but being in one place with so many femmes who are affirming each other and showing love to each other and just being together and celebrating their shared femmeness is always a highlight of my A-Camp experience. I always make new friends, have amazing conversations and get some great femmespiration for the future. I mean look at this picture, you can just see the power, strength and beauty radiating out of it.
Riese: So bowties are a thing for the Dapper types, eh?
The Banquet:
Riese: The wedding also gave us an excuse to close out camp with a fancy dinner and dance like we did with “Prom” at Fall Camp!
Robin: We had a lovely dinner prepared by the Alpine Staff.
Robin: The Alpine Staff even bought Carrie and Bren a special present in honor of the occasion!
Melinda Gonzalez, Thunderbirds Counselor: Like the end of everybody’s wedding, after Bren and Carrie’s you feel elated for the friends you love, and everything is right with the world. My girlfriend had brought up a bottle of Thunderbird wine with her up the mountain, which is notoriously bad booze. It was in the cabin as a decoration, but when I walked in after the wedding the Thunderbirds were cheering, laughing, were chugging this stuff that when my girlfriend googled it there were warnings it could turn your tongue blue. I joined in; it was my favorite moment of camp, it was sweetness and light and fun, we were celebrating the day and camp itself, and no matter what lay ahead on that day we were happy. There was no better end to it all.
Laura Mandanas, Outsiders Counselor & Contributing Editor: After the banquet dinner, the Outsiders gathered in our cabin to play “rose, thorn, bud” before the reception. We each named one thing that was good at camp, one thing that wasn’t, and one thing that we were hopeful for. My campers were all so sweet and honest and real and amazing, I felt like I was going to explode. There was just so much love in that room.
Kaylah Wilson, Rhythm Nation Counselor & Modtern: The Rhythm Nation cabin is obviously the best in the land. I had some deep talks, drank some deep drinks and exchanged some deep side eyes with my cabin.
Chelsey: My campers, The Blackhearts, are made of pure sunshine and light. Everyone just stepped up and took care of each other when needed and they were everything I could have hoped for in my first cabin. I’m really lucky I got to be their counselor and that they let me be so overenthusiastic and new at things at them the whole camp. I love you guys!
Riese: The Runaways were so smart and inspiring and so supportive and also hilarious and delightful to be around. I enjoyed eating meals with them, seeing their faces at activities and hearing what they thought afterwards and hanging on their every word in general (including the pigeon-hole notes and post-camp emails I’ve since re-read a billion times) Also me and a bunch of Blackhearts saved a gang of Runaways from being lost in the woods for life, just saying.
Rory Midhani, Gladiators Counselor & Illustrator: THE REAL HIGHLIGHT of camp though is the general lovely atmosphere of people being lovely and supporting and respecting each other and giving each other lovely compliments! It was just lovely. Lovely lovely lovely.
Chelsea Steiner, My Bloody Valentines Counselor: My Bloody Valentines were the cutest cabin on earth. You are all lovely and amazing people. But if you climb any more trees, you’re all grounded.
The Wedding Reception
Because the A-Camp Family Band was always destined to be a wedding band.
Robin: The family band, consisting of Marni, Mal, Stef, Cara, Alex, Dani and Gabby, got everyone dancing.
Marni: The best part of every camp for me is playing music with my friends. This time, the A-Camp Family Band was reincarnated as Bren and Carrie’s wedding reception band, and it was the most fun ever forever amen.
Stef: I’m not sure anybody is ever aware of how much practice and energy we put into piecing together the A-Camp shows, but this one felt especially important because it was for Bren and Carrie’s wedding, you know? We were all over the place in a lot of ways, but I had an amazing time.
Marni: True to form, we’d rehearsed only minimally beforehand, and gifted drummer Alex Vega and clutch bassist Stef were on point as the greatest rhythm section a Butch Beyonce could ever ask for.
Mey: I had started losing my voice a little and getting a sore throat that afternoon, so I was afraid that by the time the reception came along, I wouldn’t be able to have much fun. However, the Magical Power of the Lesbian Wedding ran through me and I ended up having more fun that night than I did any other night of dancing. The band was amazing.
Stef: We opened up with Tegan and Sara’s “Closer,” which showcased my awesome 30-year-old analog synthesizer (which I geeked about, and Carly told me “sounds like an insane spaceship”) and got the room dancing. We brought Mal Blum up to play tambourine and dance around on Outkast’s “Hey Ya,” which is the most incredibly fun song to play with your friends; we could have played that on a loop all night and I would be been perfectly content. Then Dani Orner joined us for a cover of “Follow Your Arrow.”
Stef: Gabby performed her own lyrics to “Started From The Bottom”…
Gabby: I rapped a version of Drake’s “Started from the Bottom.” Made up my own lyrics and changed the chorus to “Started from the Bottom Now We’re Queer.” All the funs.
Stef: That brought us into “Drunk In Love,” the new standard for classy wedding receptions everywhere. At some point, I sang a jubilant cover of Cheap Trick’s “I Want You To Want Me,” featuring kick-ass guitar solos from Cara.
Mey: Their setlist was spot on and Bren and Carrie’s first dance was adorable.
Stef: Ali had gotten engaged a couple of weeks before camp, so we called her up to the stage and sat her in a chair so we could serenade her for “Like A Virgin.”
Ali: Okay, Stef did not tell me what was going to happen. She just said if they called me up on stage, would I come up on stage? And I said as long as no one made me do anything that required any kind of skill, that I was down. But I also didn’t know when that was going to be. So I went to use the bathroom and then someone came in and was like, they’re looking for you, so I left the bathroom and I didn’t really think Stef was going to do anything and I walked back into Eagle and people just sort of started pushing me toward the stage and Stef told me to sit and I was SO CONFUSED YOU GUYS.
Stef: She had no idea what we were about to do to her and made a series of completely adorable faces the whole time – especially when Kip climbed onstage and gave her an extremely erotic lapdance.
Ali: I had no proper idea of what was going on or really why it was happening and then KIP GAVE ME SOME SURPRISE SUSPENDERS ON SUSPENDERS ACTION.
Ali: Then we devolved into laughter and I was trying to find the proper facial expression to say, THIS IS NOT ABJECT TERROR, I CONSENT, I AM JUST SO CONFUSED RIGHT NOW but I don’t think I did that, I think the face I came up with was just a cross between aforementioned abject terror and possibly a scared chipmunk caught in a flashlight beam with the vague notion that she is being seen.
Mey: Ali’s completely confused face during her “Like a Virgin” serenade/lapdance made for one of my favorite camp memories.
Ali: Between that and the birthday twerk (delivered lovingly by Kai, Kayla and Gigler), I got a lot of butt-wiggling-related-action this camp.
Riese: The reception was a blast and a great way to wrap up the celebrations. The A-Camp Family Band is my favorite band of all time.
Stef: The highlight of the whole night for me was playing “Two Princes” by the Spin Doctors with Cara, whose “shoobadoo-bop-bop” reverberated around Eagle Lodge and made everything in the universe feel pretty OK.
Riese: Then it was time for the last night dance, which, per always, I attended in order to be in a few photobooth shots, and then dashed.
Robin: DJ Carlytron, as always, killed her last night of camp set.
Mary: Call me predictable and mushy – but when DJ Carlytron played all of the Robin and Lady Gaga songs and Alex Vega got on stage and did the “Bad Romance”, and “Call Your Girlfriend” dances. That was pretty much it for me – I could’t really function after that.
