Junior/Senior Prom 2016
Photograph from my Instagram feed.
I'm the current senior class advisor, so one of my job responsibilities is organizing and running the junior/senior prom. This is our second annual prom, so it's a fairly new tradition. We historically held a Naval Ball, run by the NJROTC program, but that was scraped and we moved towards having a traditional prom, which was exciting for the girls but the boys complained a lot about now having to pay for a rental tux (instead of wearing their school uniforms, haha)
We don't have a school gym and our school cafeteria is subpar as a location (just a singular room, can't really fix that up), so I looked into rental halls. I started looking into dates more than a year ago, and you'd be surprised by how many places are booked up, even on a Friday night, especially since it's wedding season. I believe in other parts of the country, weddings are commonly held in homes (if you have a big estate or farm?) or VFW halls; but in New Jersey, they are frequently done in banquet type halls or country clubs, which is what I was competing with for my prom. Sigh.
I ended up finding the most glorious place for our prom--- it was located on the beach overlooking the ocean, a third-story night club that is part of a upscale chic boutique and restaurant. The hotel offered a roof-top swimming pool to their guests during the day (with gorgeous view of the ocean), and at night when the pool was closed, the area becomes a nightclub/bar at night (but only in the summers. Since we are a very seasonal community.) There was a wedding booked for Friday May 20 which was my first pick, and I didn't want Memorial Day weekend, so I went with Friday May 13.
My prom committee love it. We knew it would make for an untraditional prom, but we are unconventional. We were not going to do a sit-down dinner with plated service; it would be an hors d'hoerves passed petite entrees only. We were not doing table arrangements or centerpieces; we were just doing cocktails and dancing the night away. We decided on a white-themed beach party feel... white hydrangea flowers, sand-filled vases with sand dollars and seastars, and white candles in lanterns. The inner area has a bar and a huge dance floor with wired surround sound. The outside area has a partially-covered area with lounge chairs and a fireplace, as well as the swimming pool and gorgeous views of the ocean. It was perfect for a marine-themed high school prom.
Here's the place decorated before the students showed up:
Sadly I forgot my camera to take photos, and once the party started, I was so busy running around, making sure everything was taken care of and everybody was happy, that I didn't have much time to stop and relax. My best friends from work attended and we laughed and danced and drank mocktails and laughed some more. The catered food was amazing and the waitstaff were attentive and unobtusive. We hired the nightclub DJ, so he was quite the professional and really got the party going. There were two bouncers/security from the night club that checked all the purses and patted down all the guys on entry, as the teachers greeted them and invited them upstairs to the third floor. Because there is a restaurant on the ground level upon entry, there were a lot of restaurant patrons who were eyeing our students as they entered the building, and I overheard one say "no, can't be a high school prom; they dresses are way too fancy and the girls look older and classy. Maybe a college formal or something?" but no, they were just high school girls. And so gorgeous. I wish I had my camera. I wish I had captured more. I hugged them and laughed and danced with them, and they pretended to buy me drinks from the bar (mocktails), and they formed a circle around me and chanted my name and we danced, and we sat outside in the cool night by the fireplace and talked.
When the party ended at 11 p.m., I took 10 students in our school bus and drove them to the campgrounds an hour away, climbed into our tents, and slept under the stars. These ten students, instead of choosing post-prom festivities down the shore at a rented beach house where undoubtedly lots of alcohol, drugs, and sex, would be involved, chose to spend their night with two teacher chaperones. And the next morning at 6 am., they spent the day in an environmental science-themed academic competition.
My two teams finished in 4th and 5th place, out of 35 teams at the competition!! Which is amazing, my second best finish (best finish was 3rd place in 2010). This is the first time I've had two teams in the top 5. Of course, prizes were only awarded for first, second, or third places, so we had no glory. As we got back on the bus, the student said "huh, if only we actually studied for this competition and tried...." And it's completely true; these damn naturally-smart kids ;) If we only actually tried to do well, maybe we could win this, but every year, like de ja vu, we just end up going because we like being outdoors and camping.
I finally made it home at 6 p.m. on Saturday.