A friend on mine did a gender reveal. She said, “it’s going to be intimate, fun, and her sister only knows the gender.” Sounds normal, right?
Anyway, I get there. My friend has hired a hall, there is about 100 of us, and everything is decorated to the extreme. It took me a while to notice all the iPhones on stands, and ring lights everywhere among the decorations. (Balloon sculptures in blue and pink, blue and pink table decorations, blue and pink flower arch etc.)
Then what I can only call a surreal experience happened. My friend, basically curated this whole gender reveal for social media. There was games, like passing a ballon to each other without it popping, and even a whole dance moment, which was clearly rehearsed and choreographed. Every “game” and every moment was designed for the socials. Meanwhile I was sitting there thinking, why am I even here..
My friend would pause after each moment to check the recordings on each of the phones, to make sure everything was perfect. And to be fair to my friend, she ran her gender reveal like a military exercise. It was so incredible boring as a guest, watching this BTW.
FINALLY, after about 3 hours it was time to pop the gigantic balloon to reveal the gender. It’s a girl!! Pink powder everywhere. (Of course they filmed this for socials but they can only do this once.)
And while everyone in the room was happy and congratulating the couple, the smoke alarm goes off due to the powder. It’s super loud, and my friend just bursts into tears because her gender reveal is ruined. She screams at everyone to stop recording. The ceiling is really tall, and some guests are trying to climb on chairs and tables, desperately trying to fan away any powder. One of them falls and hurts themselves. Someone is calling the building management. Meanwhile this super loud alarm has been ringing for more than 30 mins. Guests are starting to leave, my friend is still hysterical and is getting clearly annoyed that people are leaving (she had more curated things to record apparently) and after I had my fill on the carnage, I left. So that was a very interesting afternoon on a Saturday.