Never Had A Prom? How About A ‘Mom Prom’?

Probably like many Brits, my early impressions of American life were derived from movie experiences. At the very beginning, back in the mid to late 70s for me, it was all about Grease. School in the USA to little me was simply Rydell High and that was a paradise I could only dream of. Oh no, the students of Rydell High did not have to wear dreary grey “cardies” and sensible shoes from Clarks. No way! They had pink lady jackets, pencil skirts and kitten heels. The boys all looked like some derivative of “early, hot Elvis”.  And they went together like a ramalama-ding-dong.

Fast forward to the mid 80s and this impression of cool school was further enhanced; Pretty in Pink, The Breakfast Club, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (what would you want a day off for if your school is like that?).

The one big thing that gave me the biggest American school envy though was prom. While this has become a new right of passage for Brit kids leaving school now, back in 1988, when I left my Hampshire Comprehensive, there was nothing of the sort – maybe a low key, non-committal school disco, but definitely nothing for which I was compelled to buy a dress.

In Pretty in Pink, there is a scene where Iona warns Andie about not attending prom and how not going would come back to her and haunt her later life. Well, Iona – imagine being an 80s Brit girl exposed frequently to scenes of prom and only ever being able to dream of it?

Fast forward again to 2020. It’s life in the time of Covid-19. I am living in Cincinnati, Ohio and, after just over three years, I am about to move on. I am 48 years old. I have formed myself an amazing tribe of American running friends. No, scrap that, they started as running friends, the running now remains a big, but only peripheral, causal factor in my love for them. Over 36 months and many running miles of me explaining differences in Brit culture and asking them wistfully about their proms, I inadvertently planted a seed that grew into quite possibly the best “leaving do” I have ever had. I hereby introduce to you … my MOM PROM!

Oh my gosh, I can’t even tell you. Some weeks before, I became aware of excitement building amongst these girls and evidence of conversations being had, in the nicest way, behind my back. Then I receive my invitation – laminated and in the style of a Spice Girls album cover. Oh, dear readers, I would be going to Prom! (girly scream).

Suddenly my life becomes one of those movies. Make the plain girl prom queen. To give you some idea of the kind of girls these friends are, whilst it’s likely well over 10 to 15 years since their actual proms, they all still have their original dresses and can fit in them.

 Amongst those dresses, however, is the one. It is the dress of prom dreams; sugar pink, boned with net skirts that increase your footprint by many feet. It’s a dress a fairy godmother would summon for The Ball. Without me knowing; long before this, this dress is earmarked FOR ME!  The night before, my loaning friend Kate spends hours sewing pink ribbons to the back to ensure it not only fits, but also looks like it was made to.

Can we cut forward one last time, to a Saturday in July, where I am summonsed to a friend’s house. I am greeted with champagne, a prom queen sash and a real flower corsage for my wrist.

The guest list is just us, eight girls who have come to be known as “Runwives.”  We laugh, I cry, then I make them cry. We eat canapes and pink cupcakes. We switch from stilettos to running shoes. We sit in a circle and do a “mostly like to” quiz.  The doorbell rings and it turns out to be “The Big Juicy Ham (BJH).” If you are thinking my girls ordered me a stripper, you are thinking like I did.  But no, this is an evening the represents days of innocence. BJH is in fact a DJ who is going to spin tunes on an actual deck in the garden for us.

Now, BJH may well have been expecting to provide background music while some women giggled and talked amongst themselves. Nope, not these girls. Every song played was a song danced to.

The sheer brilliance of this night has not even yet sunk in.  Why am I sharing this with you? Well, on the off chance you are a Belle who went to school in the 80s or 90s, you probably never experienced prom. I’m telling you now, that it’s not too late. It’s never too late. I wholeheartedly encourage you dress up with your girls and party; party like its 1999, like its prom, a wedding, a ball – party like a girl, with your girls.

And finally, to my Ohio Runwives – I love you beasts, and this is not really a Hard Candy Christmas, it’s not goodbye and thus, I won’t let sorrow bring me way down*

*Dolly Parton moment – You had to be there.