What’s Your Prom Story?

My last post featured Samantha’s prom and her date, John, and friends from Samantha’s school. But John goes to a different school, so it seemed only fair that I capture pre-prom images from his prom too. So, the next day, I hung out with the couple again, and a few of John’s friends. I’m so glad Samantha wore a different dress! Totally different colors this time.

More pictures below.

When I first arrived, we were looking at pictures of John from Samantha’s prom the night before.

Dana did a great job changing Sammie’s look to go with the different dress.

We believe that Toby would have been thrilled to go to the prom with John. I’m betting there’s some company somewhere that makes a paw corsage.

I almost got a cameo in this shot!

Love it!

When you’ve got a resident costume expert, just let her do the pinning, ok?

We kept hoping a bird would fly up to Sammie’s hand, like on Enchanted. Didn’t happen.

The flowers were so pretty.

After taking pictures of John and Samantha, we went to John’s neighborhood to get some shots of his friends. I love this one. It has that “movie poster” look to it!

John and his friends.

Just a little drama makes everything more fun.

Click. Change. That’s a fun prompt to get fun shots.

Love the shoes.

This shot was their idea! Love it!

They were having fun modeling for me, I think.

The girls loved this pose of their dates.

Before we met up with John’s friends, we took lots of couple shots of just Sammie and John.

Love this one.

Here’s a prom photo tip — swing around a little with a smile to show off the dress fabric and how it moves.

Doesn’t John look so suave in this shot?

That dress was tough to shoot. First of all, my camera tends to emphasize reds, and red, when turned to black and white, changes to a a shade of gray in the mid-ranges. For the black and whites in this series, I had to lighten the dress so that it wouldn’t appear as a rather dingy battleship gray.

Love this one!

This one too.

I like the composition of this one.

I felt very lucky to have drama students as my photo subjects.

They’re so expressive.

And they usually know a dance move or two.

Same thing in John’s neighborhood — drama students, and so expressive.

I didn’t have to do much pose coaching with them.

I love her dress, and she looks FABULOUS in it!

They all look like such good friends.

So fun!

Aren’t they such a fun couple? I love it!

This one makes me SMILE!!!

If you’re checking out this blog post for ideas on posing your kids for pre-prom pictures, try telling the couple to hold hands, but stand as far apart as they can, then chide them into standing far apart holding hands gracefully. “Gracefully, gracefully!” Always gets a little laugh!

I’m so happy to have added a level of fun and depth to Samantha and John’s proms.

Now let me tell you my prom story: My date drove his car into a parked freight train. (There was no alcohol involved, in case you were wondering. It’s just that he was merging, and he thought the train was moving, and that it would be out of the way by the time he got to the tracks. There were no injuries, except to his mother’s car grille and to his ego.) Our prom theme — gag me with a spoon — was “Through the Years” by Kenny Rogers. I thought it was cheesy then! I wore a lavender dress, which, to this day, is NOT my color, and my date wore a white tux with — gag me with a spoon — lavender ruffle trim. My lavender-dyed shoes were extremely uncomfortable and kept falling off my feet, and the straps of my dress kept falling off my shoulders. I couldn’t wait to get home!

Neither of us were dating anyone, so after the prom was over, we had a great time just hanging out with our friends. My advice to any young people reading: go to prom! Go, if only to add to the human collective of prom stories we’ll never forget.

What’s your prom story?