A few weeks ago on Vox, the Vox Hunt of the day was something along the lines of "Show us a picture of the prom." This gave me the little push I needed to try and unearth my photos from the senior prom, the one and only high school dance I attended. Of course, after searching every conceivable place they might be, I came up empty handed. While I'm disappointed that I can't show you a prom photo, I can still tell you about the events leading up to it...

The senior prom was not supposed to be a big deal. I wasn't even going to the one at my school, I went to the prom at my high school boyfriend's private school. I was going to wear a dress and shoes I already had (neither were standard prom attire, but I didn't care). Not a big deal. My step-mom had other plans. Before I knew it we were shopping for things made of taffeta and silk and finding high heels to match. I could deal with this. I wasn't thrilled with it, but I could deal. I had some input at least, so it wasn't that bad. Then my step-grandmother showed up at work one day with a bag full of make-up and a hair clip. "It'll break my heart if you don't wear it!" NOW I was upset. I did NOT wear make-up! This was going TOO FAR.

It turned out that my step-mom didn't go to her prom so there was some living vicariously through the step-daughter action going on. We ended up compromising on the make-up. I said that I would wear the lipstick and reapply it before we had our photo taken. And after many attempts wrangling my hair into an up-do, it was agreed that my hair should just be left down. I sulked and frowned through the whole process to show how displeased I was.

During all the prom madness, I had talked/complained/whined to the boyfriend many times and we had decided there had to be some way I could still get away with wearing something I actually wanted to wear to the prom. While my step-mom was busy helping me get ready, he grabbed 4 or 5 pairs of my Dr. Martens (I had quite the collection at the time), and stashed them in a duffle bag which ended up in his car. We drove to the prom, went inside and had our photo taken (I kept the high heels on, but did not reapply the lipstick), and then went back out to his car where I changed into my 10-eye maroon Dr. Marten boots. I was wearing a forest green velvet dress, so I wouldn't say it was the perfect complement to the boots, but I didn't care. All the make-up, hair and high heel hub-bub were behind us. Finally, we could enjoy the prom.

While I'm disappointed that I can't seem to find any photos from the prom at all, I'm even more dismayed that I don't have a photo of me wearing the dress and the boots. However, it looks like I may have the opportunity to recreate the party dress and boots combo this summer.

When I was in Austin at the end of March, I found a pale green bridesmaid dress at the Goodwill. This, in itself, is probably not uncommon. The fact that it fit me is practically a miracle. I rarely ever find anything at thrift stores that fits and is something I'd wear in public. At $12.99, I could not pass it up. Even if I only wore it for a Halloween costume, totally worth the price. Weeks later, after talking to a friend about her wedding and mentioning the ugly green dress, she expressed enthusiasm for me wearing it to the event. Cue illuminating light bulb over head. I can wear my bad-ass 14-eye black boots with the ugly green dress*! I can recreate my prom ensemble from oh so long ago! And this time, I'm going to make sure there are pictures.

*Did I mention it's a pretty casual wedding?
Also, I just noticed that this is post #500 in Movable Type!