What Exactly Is a "Mormon" Prom?

Lilli, Adrienne, Laney, and Cedara -- Aren't they beautiful?

This is about a week later than I meant to post, but life gets crazy sometimes, and I couldn't get to it.  Unfortunately that will prevent me from saying all that was in my heart the day after this dance, but I'll get the gist of things, I think.

Last week I drove a group of youth from our area to Columbia to attend a Mormon prom.  A Mormon prom?  What is that exactly?  Lots of people have asked me what this is and why we hold a separate prom from the traditional school sponsored prom.  Based on some of the facebook comments that were posted on my daughter's wall it seemed as if some people believed that this was some sort of better choice that she made to attend this dance rather than a school dance.  That is not exactly true.  Many of the youth who attended this dance will also be attending their school proms later this spring.  It is not true that as a church we discourage our youth from attending their school proms.  We love to encourage our youth to meet together often in social settings outside of regular church meetings, and this dance is a fun opportunity to get dressed up and experience all the fun of prom without some of the bad that can come with it in other settings.  There are some differences between the two types of proms.  There is a dress standard for our youth.  The girls have to wear dresses that are modest -- not too short, not too revealing, with sleeves on the dresses.  This is no easy task for our young women.  Have you gone prom dress shopping lately?  Laney chose to re-wear the dress she wore last year, but I can say that as we shopped for dresses last year we could easily dismiss 90% of the dresses for not meeting our modesty standards.  With a nice addition Laney was able to finally find a beautiful dress that worked for her, but her choices had been very limited.  A lot of youth have good luck looking online, but no matter what, our young women have to go to a bit more work than the average girl when hunting for the right prom dress.  Did it affect how beautiful our young women looked that night?  No!!  They were absolutely gorgeous, all of the ladies from the four or five stakes who attended.  And it wasn't like every girl was wearing the exactly same sort of dress.  Each girl was still able to find something that suited their particular style.  Lovely!

One thing that I really appreciated about this prom was that most people who attended did not bring a date.  I don't have any problem with people bringing dates to prom.  Laney attended prom last year with a very sweet young man, and it was an enjoyable evening for her.  But when someone comes with a date it kind of ties them down for the evening.  With so many people attending without dates it allowed people to dance a lot with all sort of different people.  I realize I was a horribly awkward young person, but I have to say that as I attended dances as a young person I was always desperate for a date because I thought that that would be the only way that I could ever dance . . . ever.  So as I attended these dances, almost always dateless, I would spend my night sitting on the periphery of the room, gazing longingly at all the other people who were out dancing.  I LOVE to dance . . . so much . . . but I would never get out there and do it.  I felt like I had to have a date to do that.  At these dances a ton of people dance.  Laney never sits out a dance.  If a young man doesn't ask her to dance, then Laney goes over and asks someone to dance.  And Laney is not unusual in this.  Everyone does this.  It gives them so many more opportunities to mingle with others that they might not meet otherwise.  And it is way more fun than hanging out on the sideline watching the action pass us by.  In fact I was so proud of the youth from the St. Robert area.  They would always find ways to be out there dancing most of the time.  That wasn't true of everyone.  Our youth know how to get out there and enjoy themselves.

I totally played a stalker parent during the dance.  Everyone just looked so beautiful, and I had to get pictures to remember things.  As I took pictures of everyone I was always checking on Laney.  Someday far, far in the future I'm sure that she will be able to bear testimony that she is the patient woman that she has become because she has had to deal with such a mother.  So ahead of that day, Laney, let me just say . . . You're Welcome!  I can't help it.  She is so much better of a young woman than I ever was.  It kind of amazes me.  I love to watch her in action.

Laney and Thomas

A nice young man from the Nauvoo area (I think)
 who was a bit shy to ask her to dance,
but they got along wonderfully

One of the things that I noticed about Laney as I observed/stalked her -- Laney has an amazing gift of being able to bring out the personalities of those who are a little bit more reserved.  She just looks at these young men straight in the eye as she is dancing with them, letting them know that she is completely involved in listening to the things they are saying.  I still can't do that when I talk to people.   If I had a young man who was shy or a bit nervous about asking a girl to dance for the first time, I would want for Laney to be that girl who dances with him.  She is just so confident.  I'm not sure if Laney realizes just how rare of a quality that is.  She isn't the only young woman who can do this.  I love seeing several young women in our area who do the same thing as they dance.  It's refreshing to see a dance where the couples who are dancing actually TALK to one another during the dance.  

This picture actually was one that Laney staged for my benefit.  The dance had been going on for awhile when a group of cadets from Missouri Military Academy walked in.  They were all decked out in their military uniforms, and they looked SHARP.  So impressive.  They really stood out.  As soon as I saw them I ran over to Laney and said that she had to dance with one of them.  So she did.  Nice young man, I think.  It was just fun to see Laney dancing with a boy in uniform.  So, thanks for that, Laney!

Another group who made a big impression with their entrance was a group of Samoan youth from the Independence area.  They seemed so much fun, with tons of energy.  Here is a great picture of Cedara dancing with this handsome young man -- who is not related to her (yea!).

Even the leaders got to dance once in a while!

There are lots of fun and exciting things about a regular school prom.  Laney's not attending her school prom this year because she is not officially a student.  But next year if she wants to I'll have no issue with her attending the Waynesville prom.  But the nice thing about this dance was that she was absolutely certain that she would be attending a dance where everyone would be respecting her standards.  The music would be good music.  The dancing would be good dancing.  The conversation would be good conversation.  The dresses would be modest.  It was a place where Laney felt as if she could be herself.  As a mom it was so nice to see so many youth having a great time without compromising any of their standards.  I couldn't stop smiling all night as I watched our youth having fun and getting to know new people.  I wish I had the opportunity to go to these sorts of dances when I was a young weirdo.  Tons of fun!

Chris and McKenzie in probably my favorite picture of the night