This year’s prom, A Night Under Floating Lights, has been a thoroughly planned event; one that has been in the making since the beginning of this school year.
“We begin talking about prom the week that homecoming is over,” Student Council (STUCO) advisor Julie Pellerin said. “We may have even had a quick meeting before that too.”
Leaving around six months to plan prom gives STUCO the opportunity to create a memorable experience for this year’s seniors.
“For the process of prom, we always have a beginning meeting with the class officers, and decide on the theme for the dance,” Pellerin said. “We can then discuss the venue, menu, and get everything squared away.”
Throughout this planning process STUCO and the senior class officers meet to decide the theme that will dictate the entire atmosphere of prom.
“The class officers pick a few theme options,” Pellerin said. “And then they allow the senior class to vote on the official theme.”
This year’s seniors were offered the themes:Tangled, Night in the Bayou, Starry Night, Red Carpet, and Night of Lights. They chose a theme that is inspired by the famous Disney movie Tangled.
“So we kind of wanted to play around with Tangled and lanterns and water lanterns,” senior class president and STUCO member Sayuri Sigdel said. “And we also planned to decorate the whole school with lanterns and stuff of that nature before prom.”
After deciding this year’s theme, the team wanted to ensure that the class’ vision could come to life.
“We did hire a designer this year in order to make sure all of the desired decorations are put up in the way the students wish,” Pellerin said. “We sent her a ton of vision pictures, so she could fully understand what we wanted.”
Throughout this process there have been many other decisions that needed to be made by the STUCO team as well. Decisions like what food will be served and what kind of music will be played.
“The process of planning prom itself is that we have to decide prizes and what cuisine we’re going to have and how that all plays into the budget,” Sigdel said. “We have to get a DJ, and set up the photo booth, there are safety concerns, we have to hire a decorator, all of that goes into planning.”
While wanting to bring the theme to life, STUCO also has to consider their budget restraints and whether or not they have the funds to create the night they’ve envisioned. This year there were some challenges with that.
“The biggest challenge [this year] was seniors not paying their class dues cause everyone assumed they could get their prom tickets there,” Sigdel said. “So in doing so we didn’t have a budget to go off of so we had to wait kind of longer to do everything.”
Other challenges can include working with non-school help, and trying to make the April 20 deadline.
“Sometimes relying on other people can be rough for deadline purposes,” Pellerin said. “Working with so many outside vendors can sometimes be a tad stressful, because they don’t always respond when you need them to. However, overall, this year has been a super smooth planning process.”
This year’s prom is looking to be a splashy event, with games, dancing, and food all surrounded by floating lights and lanterns to bring the theme together. Mrs. Pellerin, the STUCO advisor, works to make sure the event is one that has been planned for students by students.
“Sometimes I have to make some choices about decorations, but it is honestly 95% the class officers,” Pellerin said. “We always try to make the students’ vision come true.”
