Tuesday 7 July 2015

Prom 2015

Hey guys,

This is quite a long post so I'll try and be as brief as possible.

The season of Prom is amongst us! And although my teachers insist on calling the event  a "leavers do" -which it no doubt is- the youth of our year are determined not to undermine the special event and  have persisted in calling the event our Prom.

Now, there are three main events every person will have experienced in their lifetime (well, I hope): A birthday, a wedding and a Prom. Three causes to splurge out on expensive items of clothing that we will undoubtabley only wear once, if we're luck twice, in our lifetime. So why do we do this? Surely it doesn't make any sense.
As you may or may not know, teens all over London have, or are yet to experience the phenomenon that is their Year 11 Prom.

On Friday 19th of June 2015, St Saviours and St Olaves (my now-previous secondary school) hosted a "Leaving party" -otherwise known as Prom- for the girls of Year 11.
To be completely honest, Prom is nowhere near what I had imagined. After years of watching those stereotypical teen movies of girls obsessing over the "perfect Prom night" and viewing other Prom pictures on the internet I was expecting extraordinary lights and fireworks. The whole package.
In my mind, Prom had to be the epitome of entertainment and social activity.

I seemed to be soo focused on the night of Prom itself I had hardly thought about the role I had to play in achieving my expectations. One of those being that I actually had to put effort into looking for the perfect dress, shoes and accessories.

The process of getting ready for Prom was 99% harder than I thought it was going to be.
I spent two weeks prior to the event rummaging through the interweb (my new favourite word) for a dress. This search led me to an Elie Saab trail dress. The image was stunning and thus my obsession with Chiffon was born.

I was determined to have a chiffon prom dress.

What I find hardest to believe about my whole prom dress search was the fact that I absolutely hate ordering clothes online -especially if I need the item quickly. One of the most evident reasons for this is the item may not come on time, leaving you with nothing or even worse, the items arrive on time but you have to send them back because you realise that it's too busty or isn't in the correct size.
There are just too many things that can go wrong when ordering online. This meant that if I found a dress online, I would have to only search for stores that had local shops. An example of this would be ordering a dress from River Island instead of Asos.
Mayas communal Garden
As I was obsessed with that Elie Saab dress, and it was clearly out of my price range, I became fixated with the idea that I had to have a replica dress custom made for me.
That fixation was short lived as I had left it too late for any seamstress to be able to make a decent looking replica dress (a week before prom). At this stage I began to panic internally.
What if I couldn't find a decent dress in time?
Do I decide not go to Prom?
That's when my mum stepped in and saved the day. Said we would go dress shopping that Thursday (a week before prom). One thing we should all know about my mum is that she is a huge fan of old fashioned shops that have been there for a while such as BHS and Debenhams -so unsurprisingly she took me there first. Soon after arriving at Debenhams, we got onto the escalators headed straight for the 4th floor. Having arrived at the 4th floor, we got off the escalators and began our search for my dress. The crazy thing is that fell in love with the first dress I saw but I said nothing to my mum because I felt that she might have thought it was over the top and expensive.
Roughly ten minutes into rejecting any suggestions she had for my dress, she became restless and told me to "go and pick anything up to try on".  This was the most ideal time to at least try on the dress I had seen, even if I couldn't get it, at least I could get it out of my mind.
To be brief, I tried on the dress and both my mother and I loved how it looked on me and purchased it.

A link to my Dress is below:

That same day, we entered a shop called Dune. Here I found a sales assistant who was my age (16). I have forgotten her name but she was a super sweet person and easy to converse with. We began bonding over how difficult our Physics GCSE exams were going to be and how ill-prepared we were for Prom. Whilst I was being social, my mum was browsing the shoes, browsing for something that had the potential to match my newly-purchased dress. A few seconds into my conversation with the nameless sales assistant, my mum came back with a pair of platforms.
The Crew
At first I was a little sceptical. I'm not one to wear shiny pieces of any item of clothing or accessories, but the sales assistant did her job unsurprisingly well and before we knew it, we were purchasing a matching clutch.
It was sorted. We bought all of my prom equipment complete with accessories in one day. I'd say that was pretty impressive.

Now that my dress had been sorted out, it was time to sort out one of my closest friends Maya. She usually doesn't wear dresses nor does she go shopping that often. This meant that it was up to me and a select few others (including Mayas Grandpa) to find her something to wear on prom night.

Considering the fact that I had recently found my dress at Debenhams, it was a no-brainer to demand that we visit there first.
Entering the department, I knew roughly what I was looking for (although it is harder to locate items that you found online in store). The night before we went shopping, I  spent roughly half an hour figuring out what style of dress would suit Maya the most.
Judging by my own feelings backed up by the help of my "unofficial fashion consultant" Kayleigh, we decided that Maya should stay away from any lightly/brightly coloured dresses as she is quite pale and therefore her skin would pop with a dress of a darker tone.
We, the select few who accompanied her dress shopping, decided that we would each individually select one dress for Maya to try on, then go from there. In the end, we decided on a dress.
With Lilly :)
My sisters played a huge part in getting me presentable for Prom. If it wasn't for them I can't even begin to imagine how un-presentable and outrageous  I would have looked had I arrived without their help.
A few strangers who photo-bombed us then took a photo with us
Prom was programmed to last from 5.30pm to 8.30pm. This meant that we would only have three hours to party and socialise -outrageous! I know! Most people were upset with this so they planned an after-party which probably went on to midnight.
Not my kind of party.
 I didn't want my Prom dress getting messed up or destroyed amongst wild groups of party-goers.

Selfie at the London eye
Moving on, being the fun-addicts that we are, my friends and I had booked a Limo to pick us up from  the school entrance at approximately 8.45pm to ensure that we had enough time to say what could be our last goodbyes to some people as we are all going to separate sixth forms and take last minute photos with teaches and our favourite members of staff (but secretly we also wanted everyone to see our grand exit into the limo... but that's just our little secret).
With fellow Teen blogger and close friend +Neri SeesRed at prom.
The limo driver dropped us off at the back corner of the London eye to allow us to take some photos with the scenery, which was a nice surprise considering that when we were attempting to book the Limo, the woman on the phone told us that we could either go for a Limo cruise or have the Limo drop us off at a particular location. We were told that we could not have both, which was quite disappointing, so you can imagine how pleasantly surprised we were when the driver informed us that we were taking a pit stop to take photos.

With my close friend Hannah
Knowing my luck, it wouldn't have been a night out with my mates if something didn't go wrong.
Unfortunately, I was the lucky one who was forced by nature to take one for the team. At the end of the night, when the hour was up and the Limo driver had returned us back to school -It happened.
After being escorted -rather elegantly if I do say so myself- out of the Limo, my friends and I were walking away when I every-so-smartly decided to look back and wave goodbye to the driver.
In the millisecond I took to turn around to wave farewell (as I was wearing a rather tall pair of heals) I lost my balance and plummeted to the ground faster than you could say "ouch".
With my close friends Maya and Kayleigh
When I had gotten back up I discovered that I had snagged the front of my dress, along with a heel-sized hole in the bottom back of the dress and to top it all off, there was a small cut on my knee which I hadn't discovered until I saw the blood seeping through the chiffon of my dress. Yaay. The dress is now completely ruined and remains untouched in my closet. It  a rather unfortunate ending to such a great night.
With my friend Janice
To conclude, Prom wasn't exactly the typical "Best night of my life" but I honestly think that it was one of the best days of June 2015 and if I had to redo the whole night again, the one thing I would change in falling over and ruining my dress.

Have you had a Prom? If so did you enjoy it and or injure yourself?
P.s. For anyone who is yet to have a prom or find a dress, I would strongly suggest they check out Debenhams. The dresses there are decently priced and stunning.

Anyway, I've got another quote and picture for you all,
Hmm...HMM..

I think prom is just about enjoying yourself.
-Victoria Justice

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