Coronavirus has forced schools everywhere to close their doors for the remainder of the academic year. For many high school seniors that means missing out on several rights of passage— prom being a significant one for many teenage girls. But as stay-at-home orders slowly lift, graduating seniors are taking it upon themselves to make the most of their missed opportunities. With regular prom no longer an option, the class of 2020 is getting fully glammed up for their impromptu prom night at home.
Ivana Brown, senior at Tucker High School in Atlanta, already spent a great deal of money on her dress. Brown and her classmate, Corinne Williams, decided to have a full-fledged photo shoot showcasing their prom looks. “I’ve been looking forward to prom the whole year and when I heard it was cancelled I was devastated,” Brown says. “My dress made me feel beautiful, I definitely had to wear it even if it was just in front of a camera.” Taniya Ragland, a senior at Millbrook High School in Raleigh, North Carolina couldn’t miss out on showcasing her dress either. The 18-year-old student designed and created her own prom dress. “This was the biggest sewing project I’ve ever created and I was proud of myself,” she says. “I didn’t want to let it go to waste.”
Just like Brown and Ragland, many other seniors are getting dressed up to commemorate the night they’d been planning months in advance for. With the help of family members and friends these graduating seniors are enjoying an at home prom experience in lieu of the real thing. While going to prom is important for many high schoolers, the makeshift prom night they created with family and friends almost superseded an actual prom.
“This isn’t the ideal prom every girl has in mind, but it was the best one I could have ever hoped for because everyone I loved was able to experience it with me,” said Aniya Spangler, senior at William Howard Taft High School in San Antonio, Texas.
