behind the scenes look at making the prom

I know that what I've been busy doing this week may seem trivial to some of you. But to about 90 teenagers, it was anything but trivial. Prom is an important part of of most teenagers' school careers, and I am happy to have been a part of helping to build great memories for the students of WHS.

I dubbed it my marathon week, and last night was the finish line. But I want to show you some of the decorations that we pulled together.

First a look at what we started with.

A huge cave. A black hole with basketball goals. And bleachers.

Earlier in the year the junior class chose a disco style and later chose the theme I Love the Nightlife. I knew that it could be a fun prom, but it took me a while to form a plan. One of the things I had to do was come up with some choices for t-shirt designs so that the students could vote for their favorite. The winning design turned out great - it's one of my favorites of all time.

Another big decision was what to use as a photo area. Of course, it needed to fit the theme. I also wanted it to be interesting and fun. After a few weeks of thinking, it magically came to me one afternoon. Then we had to build it.

Painting the photo background was one of the first things we did.

The day we needed to paint outside was very windy. This may have been an omen for our weather luck all week.

A little rainbow paint.

A few old records picked up at a junk store for a few bucks.

I thought it would be easy to let the boys put the hinges on. I was wrong. But they finally got it together. We added an old turntable, a lava lamp, and a disco ball to finish the picture area.

And every good disco had a VIP Lounge. I had to find a way to include one in our disco. One day I was in the library discussing the decorations with my friend Robin (the librarian), and I was moaning and groaning that I wanted a lounge area. I just wasn't sure where I could find the seating area we would need. And then it dawned on me, the library had three couches. They weren't attractive, but we could temporarily alter that .

Thursday morning we moved three not-so-attractive and definitely not-vip-material couches from the library to the  gym and started the plan.

A large amount of disco fabric and a few staples later.

What an amazing difference.

But the VIP lounge would also need a backdrop. The Beta sponsor was great and offered the backdrop from this year's convention skit.

Again, just a little paint to transform the backdrop, a water feature, a few disco balls, and we had a fantastic lounge area.

And here's a few VIP's enjoy their lounge. These beautiful girls are members of the Lady Bears softball team.

We used those same rotating disco balls as the centerpieces for the tables.

Another important part of a successful party is the food. The stand for the disco ball cake pops didn't workout, and at the last minute I had to make something else work. It's not pretty, but it held the cake pops.

We had cheese dip, chips, and salsa; cheeese and crackers; summer sausage; chicken... there was more. And raspberry lemonade and sweet tea. It was all good.

These rainbow fruit skewers were really pretty.

The juniors choose prom servers from the sophomore class. These kids worked hard to help make the prom a success. And their costumes were perfect.

The boys even added some surprise hair to their costumes - it was too funny.

After just a few dances, I was walking around snapping a few pictures and saw this. It's one of my favorite pictures of the night.

We had some great lighting. In fact, it was so great that when the DJ got all of his equipment plugged in, we flipped the breakers. It was something we battled all night.

Some of the staff got together for a group picture.

And here's some of my creative writing girls - love them.

The night ended with the crowning of the prom king and queen. Well, actually it ended with cleaning, but you know what I mean.

Today a few of us worked for about 5 hours to transform our disco back into a PE building - it wasn't nearly as much fun.

I'm linking up with:

bonnie and trish and uncommonly yours
six sisters' strut your stuff saturday