Once all of my college decisions were settled, the remainder of senior year was relatively easy. I may or may not have just felt this way because I fell victim to senioritis (extreme and utter laziness and lack of motivation that typically occurs during one’s senior year AKA academic burnout). Regardless, the end of the year was approaching quickly and that meant that prom was approaching. 

To be completely honest, in early April (our prom was the first week of May), I didn’t think that I wanted to go to prom. Tickets were pretty expensive and the thought of having to actually look decent made me groan, especially considering that my typical attire consisted of a t-shirt, either sweatpants or Nike shorts, and crocs or sneakers. Somewhat like what I was wearing in this picture: 

 

However, my mom convinced me that I needed to go because as Senior Class President I should “be active in school activities”. The first thing I needed to do was find a date. I wanted to be able to take decent pictures and I didn’t want some rando to ask me, even though that was pretty unlikely. Just to be sure, I ended up texting my friend Terrance and asking him to take pictures with me even if he didn’t go, which he didn’t initially plan to. That way, I could take basic prom pictures and not have to worry about someone else asking because I already had a “date”.  

Next, I had to get my dress. I went to the same place that I went for every single high school dance for the past 4 years – a store called H&G Formal in my mall. I tried on a ton of dresses, and eventually ended up buying one that I didn’t initially fancy, but slowly grew on me. It was a handmade dress by the owner of the store and was a “one of a kind” dress. Here it is the first time I tried it on: 

After getting my dress, shoes, and all that good stuff, I was glad to be done with prom stuff until prom. However, the week before prom I found out that Terrance and I were nominated and eventually voted onto Prom Court. This was actually super funny to me because typically the people on homecoming/prom court are the same people throughout all four years and I had never even been nominated onto a court. Even funnier, Terrance hadn’t planned on actually going to prom but now he had to.

Prom day was especially hectic. My mom’s birthday was May 7th, and my dad and my mom’s friends planned a surprise trip for her to Miami from the 4th to the 10th, so my grandma had flown in from Colorado to spend the week with my little brother and me. Since my parents were gone, I had a whole lot to do before prom with essentially no help. First thing I did when I woke up in the morning was drive 30 minutes to King George to get Terrance’s boutonniere. Once I got back home, I had to end up turning right back around and going back because they gave me some ugly, little boutonniere that was definitely not what I paid for. After that, I had to rush to my mall to get my makeup done because God knows that I’m incapable of doing that myself. Furthermore, the weather decided to take a big U-turn and rain, so after getting my makeup done I rushed to Portrait Innovations, where my mom (freaking out about my prom while in Florida, over 1000 miles away) made an appointment for Terrance and me to get professional pictures before heading back to where my whole friend group was meeting to take pictures. Not gonna lie, these pictures straight up make it look like we were getting married. 

At least we looked way better than we looked in pictures sophomore year…

 

Once we were done, we headed back to my godparents’ house (where all my friends were meeting) to take group pictures and then head to prom from there.  

 Here’s a nice shot of when it began to rain in the middle of my friend Joselyn and I trying to take a picture:  

 

When we got to prom it was pretty much dead. We got there over an hour late and not one person was dancing, everyone was just standing around on their phones or talking to their friends. So, Joselyn and I did what we do best: made a fool of ourselves. I have absolutely no rhythm, but we went right in the middle of the dance floor and milly-rocked until people decided to start dancing.  

At around 10:30 pm, someone tapped me and told me that I needed to go into the front room. I was pretty confused until I went out there and remembered that I was on prom court and they were going to be announcing King and Queen shortly. Once everything was settled, they made everyone split onto different sides of the dance floor and announced each “couple” one by one and had us walk through the crowd to the front of the room. After a short spiel, our principal made everyone do a drum-roll and announced our Prom King: Terrance. The way voting worked, you voted for one guy and one girl, not as couples. I remember laughing because I was so sure that I wasn’t going to win, simply because I didn’t care enough about the whole labels thing. Then she said, “And your prom queen issssssssss – Madison Burnard”. I guess I made a facial expression because several people told me that I looked concerned when she said my name. Based on movies I watched growing up, I was NOT the “prom queen type”. I don’t know if it was because I never cared about that type of stuff or if it was because I never pictured myself as a prom queen, but I was extremely thrown off. 

The first thing I did after winning was send my mom this kinda hideous selfie and a text that said, “bruh we won”.  

After sending her this, I took a couple more pictures with Terrance and some of my other friends and then we all left to go to BJ’s Restaurant and Brewhouse because food is always a priority. 

Thanks for tuning in! 

 

Madison (: