By Megha Lakha and Leighton Maynard
Prom—an American high school rite of passage—was last weekend. Many high schoolers look forward to prom for their whole lives. For seniors, it represents the culmination of their high school careers and is one of the last times the entire senior class is together. For juniors, it’s something new and magical. Senior Ellie Wildman said, “Junior year is more like ‘Who asked you?’ and senior year is like ‘Let’s go and have fun’.”
The Junior SGA, along with their sponsor, Ms. Davis, planned prom. “It’s a lot of work,” Special Events Coordinator Charlotte Stukes says. “You meet once a week for months trying to plan it and basically, you start with an easy thing like deciding the theme and go from there.”
The theme this year was “Enchanted Garden.” The SGA began planning the event in November and worked until the day of to ensure that prom ran as smoothly as possible. “I actually almost missed my hair appointment, it was just a lot of labor,” Charlotte said. Every year, the Junior SGA chooses the venue for the following year. This year’s prom was at the Piedmont Room.
A lot of consideration goes into planning the prom. Charlotte explained that the SGA takes their friends’ tastes into consideration when choosing decorations and details. It’s also important to consider the venue when planning the design of the prom. At any prom, there should be a perfect balance of space for gathering, dancing, and munching (on hors d’oeuvres).
Overall, Charlotte was proud of how it turned out. “Everyone during the dance would come up to me and say how amazing it was. It was just really rewarding and I’m glad the work was reciprocated,” she said.
Still, Charlotte said she would change one thing: the way everyone left the dance. “I felt like it was really chaotic…because no one knew when we were allowed to leave.”
As for how they all got there in the first place, you have to go back a few months to the promposals. We spoke to a few juniors to gather opinions. Alex Hall says, “If the girl already wants to go with the guy and they’ve already established it, then it’s cute. But if it’s an act of desperation at school, it’s gross.” Ava Tabor had a different take. She “wished more people did it” because promposals are “so cute to watch.” Katherine Scott Drake got asked to prom with a fortune cookie that said ‘Will you go to prom with me?’. Tatum Hunt got asked by a brownie that read ‘prom?’. And said her “whole family was watching”.
Ava Tabor “was really stressed about getting asked and Alex Hall took [her] and another friend.” A lot of Junior boys “asked out of [their] grade because a lot of them were dating sophomores and out of school.
Before the actual prom, the students go to picture parties to…well…“take pictures.” Alec Lesley went to Preston Lusink’s house where he had dinner. Ava Tabor went to a picture party hosted by Kiran Menachery at Local Three. Though some of the picture parties were more extravagant than others, the girls definitely enjoyed it. Some of the boys we talked to, on the other hand, could have done without all the pictures.
One of the biggest difficulties of prom for girls is finding the “right” dress. Though dresses may be an easy decision for some, Junior Mikayla Carter told us it was the most stressful part of prom. “I ordered so many dresses and I just tried them on and shipped them back, it was probably about 15 dresses,” she said.
On the other hand, Junior Tatum Hunt just ordered one dress that she saw on Instagram and instantly knew it was the one. Ava Tabor said she looked and researched what she liked and I ordered 2 dresses. But she “had to scour the internet.” Alex Chen recommends looking on Pinterest and checking previous grades’ Instagram posts. She also recommends getting shoes with a platform because your feet will be in “excruciating pain.”
Especially because a big part of prom is dancing. ”It was fun because so many people were dancing,” Alex Chen says. “Like you expect people to be too cool to dance but people do dance,”. While dancing is great, the biggest complaint about it was the heat. Daniel Sams said he “found the AC unit, turned it down to 50 degrees and it did not help.” Avery Arnold said, “Guys are like dripping sweat on you and it’s so hot.”
Movies about prom don’t tend to focus on excessive sweating, but it’s clearly a part of this rite of passage, whether behind the scenes in preparation or out on the dance floor the night of the big event, with all those juniors and seniors putting some serious energy into having fun.
