The Ball
With some friends before the ball
At the beginning of December we went to the Marine Corps Birthday Ball. There are marines posted in Rome at the embassy, and every year they throw a big formal ball to celebrate the birthday of the Marine Corps. And they certainly celebrate in style.
Posing with the room, before the festivities.
They rented an amazing villa in Rome, (with impressive security) and arranged a formal dinner and dancing.
Marine receiving line, with the Ambassador and his wife
On the way in to the villa they had a receiving line with all of the Marines, and they gave each woman a white rose. (Which was super-cute!)
There was a lot of pomp & circumstance, flag processions, cutting a huge cake, giving swords as gifts, speeches … and posing with Marines in full regalia. I didn’t actually pose with the marines, but fortunately, there were two other women at the Marine ball wearing the exact same dress as me. One of them also had her hair done exactly like mine … and she got her picture taken with them:
My twin ... with the Marines
With some friends who kept the dance party going.
After the pomp and circumstance, it was a big dance party. The Marines had flown a DJ in from New York to make sure the party kept going. We were there until 1am. It was a lot of fun, and a really cool experience.
Tante Avventure 
You look great with all those marines.
Funny to see the photo of your twin.
Kate, you looked GORGEOUS! What a fun reason to get dressed up.
I seem to recall it was 2 am- didn’t they extend it? Or maybe it was somewhere in between, like 1:30? I don’t know, but it was fun. So glad we could be there! Thanks for posting the picture of all of us.