A'dress'ing Prom

It was almost twelve years ago around this time when my heart was aflutter hoping that I would find the perfect one, and I did. I pulled out my prom dress from the recesses of my closet, still in its pristine condition of being worn only that one night. I sincerely hope that the recipient of this almost “vintage” dress will feel as much as a princess as I did on the night I wore it.

I don’t recall if we danced, I don’t recall if we ate. I don’t recall the theme or who was queen. I don’t remember too much about my date, other than he was the starter of the varsity basketball team and I asked him to prom through his sister because I was shy and he was cute. What I can remember vividly though was my prom dress.

My best friend’s cousin, Kevin, was then a budding design student (who has now evolved into a wedding dress designer www.kevinlieu.com) working out of a community college. With a few strokes on a pad he designed three prom dresses for me to choose from and together we hopped into his little lime green Honda civic to go search for the fabric and then to use the sewing machines from his class at the community college. The initial fitting of my dress three days prior to the big day was ill-fitting and disastrous.

On prom day, I was so nervous, I had not seen or tried on the new dress and I was hoping that it would just fit. It had to fit; I had no back-up. Kevin was my fairy godmother though and delivered perfection. I slipped on the dramatically backless silver halter dress with the elegant rhinestone neckline and gorgeous train and it felt magical. I never had such a fabulously fitting dress before and I was instantly transformed from a bookishly cute teenager into a glamorous young woman for the evening.

That night, my dreams of being the most beautiful girl in the room came true. What I had envisioned in my mind came out exactly, if not better, than what I had hoped for (I only hope that my future wedding will go off as smoothly!)

Prom season is starting again and teenage girls still continue to be excited about the prospect of having that beautiful dress that will transform them for that one evening. I hope that my prom dress will go to a deserving young lady who will find it to be a perfect fit and that it will bring to her the confidence and exuberance that I felt as a young woman by wearing it for that one night.
I hope that this young lady will find in the dress that she has a fairy godmother who wants her to have her dreams come true even if it’s only for one magical evening.