Preview to the drama that is right around the corner!

My niece should be hitting the rack any moment now after her first prom.  I live about two hours away from my sister and her kids, so I've been hearing second-hand about all the prom preparation stuff for months, but haven't actually seen any of it. 

First there was the getting asked part - my niece was asked by a very nice, very tall, handsome young man of good family.  Whew!  The drama?  He Liked her, but she didn't Like him.  Uh oh ... what would she do?  There was much handwringing over the dilemma of how to go and have fun without leading him on ... (the "rest of the story" on this thread is at the very bottom so keep reading!)

Then came the dress.  The drama?  My niece has expensive taste, I learned, when she would show me photos of the things she found on the internet.  I suggested to my sister that she set a dollar figure for the parental financial contribution, and let my niece figure out where to spend it.  My sister and my niece ended up going shopping one Saturday, though, and finding JUST THE THING.  They were so excited. 

Then came the shoes.  Platform spike heels.  Those were some shoes - probably added six inches.  Good thing that nice boy is really tall! 

Then I understand there was drama about accessories - clutch, earrings, etc. - that required much searching and shopping.  As my sister said to me repeatedly over the past month - "we" want it all to be just perfect.  Good thing it was all by telephone, given the number of my eye rolls.

Hair and makeup began yesterday at 7:15 a.m.!  Then there was a photo op planned at noon at the local golf course for the junior class, which was really a good idea since there are lots of friend groups etc. that parents wanted pictures of.  Pouring rain though, which I expected would create a lot of drama, but was surprised to find everyone just sort of handled.  Then the annual car parade around the lake and back to the high school for the grand march at 4p.  I was there with my sister and our parents by 3:30p.  The car parade didn't show up until nearly 4:30p!  It was windy and cold, and toward 5:30p (still nowhere close to over) the big fat raindrops started to fall off and on.  But the kids really showed their midwestern sturdiness and they bounced on through without any visible drama.

I said over and over how glad I was that prom did not involve all this nonsense when I was in high school.  Yuck!  But my niece was beautiful and my sister was only marginally neurotic in her drive for "the perfect night".

Oh and I'm leaving out the interpersonal drama!  Hope you are still reading because this is the really good part!  So my niece was all worried about her date and that he Liked her more than she Liked him. Well, she found out a couple weeks ago that he had his eye on a new girl, perhaps even to girlfriend level, so then there was drama about whether he'd ditch my niece and go with the new girl ... and holy crap what then about the matching tie and dress!  Well, he didn't ditch my niece, and the new girlfriend also has a date, and so the new girlfriend and her date were seated at the same dinner table for prom as my niece and her date.  And my sister went on and on about hoping the prom date was nice and wouldn't ignore my niece, yadda yadda yadda.  But then in the last few weeks my niece has also been going all blinky-blink at her good friend Joe.  And apparently he was blinking back because I just learned that a week or so ago they moved in to the capital L Like arena again.  But Joe wasn't going to prom but he was going to the after prom party.  And Joe is friends with my niece's prom date too.  So I suspect that there was plenty of couple switching going on last night.  And after all that my sister was flipping out about how the prom date better not ignore my niece and all that, when he and my niece came over to talk to us after the grand march last night, what did my sister do?  Promptly insist that Joe and my niece pose for a photo together (he was sitting with us) and totally ignored the very nice prom date, who looked extremely uncomfortably awkward.  And then she introduced him to all of us, telling him who we all were, but then saying to us, and "this is the prom date".  EYE ROLL! 

Anyhow, they were then off to the dinner and dance until 11p, then to the after prom lock in party until 3a, and then to someone's house for breakfast after that.  I will be interested to hear how it all went.  And praying every day, over the next 7-10 years, that my daughters can sail through this in a little more low maintenance fashion, and that I do not try to re-create my own high school experience through my kids.  I love my sister dearly but holy hannah, this has been a roller coaster of drama with her.