Make Your Prom An Occasion To Remember

From dinner to photos, attire to transportation, you can make prom fun, memorable and unique with any of these tips generated by Our Generation correspondents.

Or, come up with your own suggestions and send them to us. We’re keeping a running list of suggestions on the Our Generation Web site.

Dining in style

A popular suggestion is to cook dinner with your date. Or, guys, if you really want to impress your date, arrange to cook dinner for her. Find out ahead of time (from her mom) what your date’s favorite dish is and get the recipe. Practice the recipe once on your family and then complete the evening with a nice table cloth, candles and soft music playing in the background. Be sure to send your family out for the evening so you can dine without several pairs of eyes peering around the corner.

Pick up fast-food from the drive-thru, sandwiches from a deli or even something like Chinese take-out and have a picnic in the park. Be sure to bring a tablecloth and something to place on the bench so you don’t get bird droppings on your clothes.

Be trendy, plan a progressive dinner with a group of friends, each couple hosting one course of the meal at one of their homes. Parents might like this idea, so they get to see all of your friends dressed up, too.

Throw a themed dinner party with a group of friends. Have each couple bring a dish based on an agreed upon theme, such as Hawaiian, Western or Mexican.

Go to an all-you-can-eat buffet.

Go out for dinner, but order everything family style and share with your date and friends.

Fashion fancy

Wear something in your closet or borrow a friend’s dress. Guys, a nice shirt, tie and slacks can work just as well as a tux.

Check out vintage stores, look for dresses and suits that match a certain time period, say the 20s or maybe the 70s.

Rent a dress. At least one shop in town “A Finer Moment” on north Monroe will rent dresses to girls for formal occasions at half the cost of the sale price.

Swap dresses with friends from other schools.

Get creative, sew your own dress or have a relative who sews make you one.

Buy a dress that you can wear again, like at graduation, a wedding or even a dinner party. Same goes for guys, consider talking your parents into buying you a nice suit you can use again.

Transportation tricks

Some believe the key is being noticed. If so, then rent a U-haul trailer and put a couch in back and have a friend or relative be your chauffeur.

Ditto on the pickup truck. Or, for those of you who live out in the country, consider a hay ride.

Rent or borrow a tandem bike and pedal to the prom (but be sure to communicate with your date that this is the plan, so you can find clothes that make riding possible).

Carpool.

For a fairy-tale prom, consider a horse-drawn carriage.

Smell the roses

Pick your own.

Give your date a bouquet of flowers instead of a corsage. Girls, give the guy a single stem rose instead of a boutonniere.

Figure out how much you’d spend on a corsage and boutonniere and use the money to buy flowers for each other’s mothers instead.

After-prom activities

Laser Quest.

Cosmic bowling.

Walk on Coeur d’Alene beach.

Group breakfast at a friend’s house.

Rent movies.

Take yours and your date’s parents to breakfast.

Photo fun

Have all your friends take disposable cameras or easy-to-carry cameras and make a pact to photograph each other throughout the evening, dancing, dining, having fun. Plan to have all the photos developed within a week and plan a prom reunion with your friends two weeks after prom to share and swap photos. Or, use the get together to make prom scrapbooks.

Bring an instant camera to prom. It might be clunky but pass it around so all of your friends take a turn shooting. After prom, head out for a late-night breakfast to look over the photos.

Find someone who can do a caricature of you and your date in your formal wear. Send photocopies of the caricature to your relatives.

Charitable gestures

Prom is a time to celebrate, but remember there are many who aren’t as fortunate as you at this time.

Set aside time to walk the neighborhood with your date or friends in your formal wear collecting canned food for the food bank.

Cook your dinner together and make enough to take to a family in need.

Figure out how much you would spend on a fancy dinner and use the money to order pizzas and have them delivered to the teens at Crosswalk (be sure to arrange this ahead of time with the shelter).

Arrange ahead of time with a nursing home to visit residents before the prom dance. Commit to visiting the nursing home again a few days after prom to the residents all about your evening.

What do you mean you don’t have a date?

Ask someone.

Go with a friend.

Some guys have taken their grandmothers who never got to go to their own proms.

Go with a large group of friends.