Asking Someone to Prom

Will you go to prom with me? Seems like a simple question, right? And way, way back when I was in high school, it was. But sometime over the past twenty years or so, it all changed and asking a girl to prom now competes on the same level as a wedding proposal. 

Over the past month, my high school senior son and his friends have all been contemplating, scheming and scurrying around trying to find the best and most unique way they can ask the girl of their dreams to the senior prom.   

I asked my son why he can’t just ask a girl without all of the hoopla and his response was, “Because this is the way it is done mom - you have to do it up right!”

Last year when my son was a junior he took a senior girl to her prom, so he had to tap into his creative side a year early. He left a single rose on the girl’s desk before each one of her classes, along with a note listing one word each of the question “Will you go to prom”, and at the end of the school day in her last class, he ended by giving her a full bouquet of flowers and a final note with the words “with me?”. 

But this year, being seniors, my son and his friends all had to kick it up a notch to get dates to the big dance. One of his friends, during his baseball game, when his intended date had a lacrosse game at the same time on an adjacent field, hung a sign that said “Will you go to prom with me?” on the shared fence. As she came out onto the field he had the announcer ask the question over the loud speaker at the same time she saw the posted sign.

Another friend of my son’s enlisted the help of someone talented on the guitar. He wrote a song that included the question “Will you go to prom with me?” and sang it to her in one of her classes while his friend accompanied him on his instrument.

And my son, with the help of his grandfather, built a wooden sign that he hand-painted with the word “Prom?” on it which he put on a stand that was attached to the middle of a canoe. He then took his girlfriend to a park down by the Occoquan River where he positioned her on a bench by the water’s edge. While they were enjoying the scenery, his grandfather and a friend rowed by on the canoe with the sign prominently displayed at which point he popped the big question.    

Luckily for my son and his friends, all of these innovative proposals worked like a charm because they all landed dates. And with all of this creativity flowing, they should be fully prepared to pop their next big question somewhere down the road – in the case of my son I’m hoping way down the road – but I’m looking forward to seeing what he will come up with then!