The spacious foyer and banqueting hall will be decked out in glittering Prom style and visitors will be greeted with a complimentary non alcoholic cocktail while our band ‘The Prom Stars’ play your favourite Prom tunes.  

Fantastic goody bags will be given to the first 50 guests to arrive and there will be a subsidised, themed Prom Bar, a disco and free prize draw to win a genuine vintage Gucci watch.

The highlight of the evening will be our Fashion Show where the latest Prom looks will be modelled by local Year 11 pupils who will have been professionally styled by leading Northampton salon ‘Outcast’.

 The event will be filmed by PromTV who will be interviewing visitors and looking out for future Prom Stars!

Entrance is free but if you’d like further information or to book a stand call Jacqueline on 01604 407771 or email info@prominabox.org.uk or go to www.eventsinabox.org.uk.

In other words, all of the fun bits and none of the stress…

Things can get sticky later on however. When all of the big decisions are made, like prom theme, ticket price, date etc, the details have to be taken care of. Once the details have been decided upon, someone actually has to go and make it happen. Someone has to phone a prom service supplier and get a quote. Someone has to make sure the bank account is opened and the funds there and accessible. Someone has to collate quotes, then confirm bookings, pay deposits, keep receipts, check the balance is paid and oh! Suddenly that's not looking so fun any more, is it?

Ways to stop the stress creeping into prom organising

If you implement these tips early on, not only will the later stages of prom planning be a lot less stressful, next year's prom committee will have an easier time of it too.

1. Keep a prom committee minutes book

Nominate a person who will take notes (usually called minutes) during every committee meeting, and summarises the decisions made during that meeting. When there are twenty people in a room shouting out their opinions all at once, it's easy to lose track of what has actually been settled upon.

It might help to write key decisions on the whiteboard so that everyone can see them as they are made – and don't get a horrible surprise later on because they missed something.

2. Keep an actions and to-do list produced from each meeting

A key decision invariably leads to an action, which produces a to-do list for key people. For example, if you decide that you want to have a magician perform for guests during the prom, that means someone has to find one (the action) and the to-do list would be to find entertainers that perform at large scale events like proms, weddings and balls and contact them for quotes.

If the person nominated to do that sees it written down in the book, they're more likely to remember to do it.

3. Start every meeting with a review of minutes and actions update

Taking a minute to read the big decisions from the last meeting and asking each person with tasks how they're getting on does two important things: it gets everyone's brain back into the business of organising a prom and it also signals to people who have important tasks that they should be making progress. If they have forgotten and then have to say that in front of everyone, they're a lot less likely to forget again.

Sound harsh? Well, it might be, but believe me, you don't want to find out a week before the prom that someone forgot to confirm a booking, or that the tickets haven't been printed because someone got distracted.

4. Get a box file for all paperwork relating to suppliers

When you start to get formal quotes, contracts, deposit receipts etc from your suppliers the paperwork really adds up and every single piece of it is important. Buy a box file NOW and use it to keep all of it in the same place. Bring it to every meeting so that people can place whatever they've obtained into the central file. It could save you a lot of time and stress later on.

5. Get a big box to put it all in and a place to store it (preferably the library)

With a minutes book, an accounts book (we'll talk about that another time) and the suppliers paperwork, along with poster proofs, tickets and all kinds of stuff that you don’t want to loose, getting one of those big plastic tubs with a lid is a great idea.

Keeping it in the library is best because classrooms rarely have space and you might have meetings in different rooms. Libraries are used to keeping important things, and it means that everyone knows where to look year after year. The teacher who is helping you this year may not be at the school for subsequent prom committees, so if they have all of the stuff you figured out in a box that they can get right at the start, think about how much easier they'll find prom organising.

Think about how nice it would have been to go and get that box, turn to a new page in the minutes book and make your mark for all of your school's future prom committees to find.

Prom committee paperwork… it's not glam, it's not sexy, but if you get it right, it can make everything so much easier.

P.S. I know everything is being done on computer these days, but the core items I describe here are best in dedicated paper notebooks because computer systems change, people will lose or delete files kept on their own computers and memory sticks when they leave school and who knows what people will be using in five years time anyway? A box of books and files is easier to hand down year after year.

If you're looking forward to your school prom, you're in the right place!

In case you're new around here, let me tell you about some of the things we talked about last academic year and what we have lined up for this year.

And I'll also tell you about our juicy monthly prize draw on Facebook.

Before that though, don't forget to download your FREE prom organiser e-book by clicking on the link at the top, or the button over there on the right or just by clicking here. You go ahead, I can wait.

So, what can you read right here, right now to get you up to speed on all things prom-tacular?

Posts for prom committee peeps

From whether you're the right kind of person to be on a prom committee to the nuts and bolts of what the people on a prom committee actually do, this is the section you need to read if you want to be right in the thick of organising your school prom.

See all the prom committee posts

Fundraising and finance for proms

Not the most fun or glamorous part I know, but still important. Find posts on prom budgets, cashflow and how to manage it all in the prom finance section.

Organising the prom

Once you've got the committee and money plans all sorted, it's time to think about your prom theme, key people like your prom photographer and how to entertain your prom guests.

Enjoying your school prom

Let's face it, there are some bits that you might be worried about, such as the whole getting a prom date thing. Well, we've already given ten romantic ways to ask someone to be your prom date, wondered whether you even need a prom date anyway and given some tips on how NOT to get a prom date. No doubt there will be more to come…

See all of the "Enjoying your prom" posts.

Looking fab for your prom

And how could we have a prom blog without advice on how to look your most gorgeous on the night?

One of our most popular posts is about choosing the best prom dress design for your body shape, and there is also one about rather fabulous corsage bracelets too.

That leads me rather neatly onto what's coming soon: the first will be a post about which colour suits you best, and I'll be doing a series on different prom themes to help you with some ideas.

Is there anything you want to know about? If you have a prom related question, simply drop me a line and let me know.

Facebook

We hang out on Facebook too, come and join us and you'll automatically be entered into a monthly prize draw for iTunes vouchers (or vouchers for something else if you don't have an iPod). Find us on Facebook here and click on "like" at the top – we'd love to get to know you.

And don't forget your e-book!

Happy new school year!

Em x

The Prom Organiser wordsmith

Why have a prom theme?

The Prom Organiser’s top three reasons for having a prom theme:

1. Having a prom theme makes it easier to design posters, invitations and tickets
2. The prom venue decoration options can be narrowed down to a focused design
3. Prom guests can choose to join in with their outfits (e.g. colours, accessories) and that’s a lot of fun for them too

Prom themes make everything to do with design easier, as without a theme, your options are simply endless. The prom theme brings motifs, colours and prominent shapes with it that can inform everything you design for the prom. For example, if you go for Arabian Nights, it immediately conjures up images of desert sand, rich fabrics in vibrant colours, and the arch shape of Arabian architecture, just for starters.

How do you choose a prom theme?

The first step is to brainstorm as a committee. Go crazy! Come up with all the wild, wonderful ideas you can and write them down on a big bit of paper. Don’t think about whether it’s feasible, it’s all about the ideas at this stage.

Next, take a step back and look at each idea, considering the following questions:

1. How could that prom theme help with visual design?
2. Is it easy to make or find prom decorations that fit in with that theme?
3. Can we make good use of this theme on a tight budget?
4. Would anyone find this theme too awful / offensive / stupid to be able to enjoy their school prom?

The last one might be strange, but let’s say one of your brainstormed ideas is a zombie prom. Zombie films and books are popular at the moment, but there are lots of people that find them scary rather than funny. It might seem like a huge amount of fun to people who think that sub-genre is a laugh, but it might be too niche, and too out there for everyone to enjoy.

That list of questions will help you prune the crazy ideas into a list of feasible prom themes. But you’ll still have to choose between them and at this point you have three options:

1. Put it to a committee vote
2. Have the chairperson decide the theme
3. Put it to a vote in the year group having the prom

You could involve the whole school in the last option, but as only one (two at the most) year group will be attending the prom, it seems more fair to just let them vote.

Always bear in mind that the theme won’t please everybody, that’s impossible. If the choice of prom theme is just causing too much grief, arguments and tantrums (they do happen you know!) then you might want to choose a colour based theme instead. One school in Somerset went down this route and chose silver, blue and purple. It served the same purpose in terms of designing posters etc and made decorating the prom venue much easier.

So, there you have it, a quick guide to choosing a prom theme. I’m gathering up lots of prom theme ideas at the moment for prom themes part two, so it’s your turn now:

Tell us your favourite prom theme ideas, and we’ll feature them in the next prom theme post! You can tell us over Twitter, on our Facebook page or in the comments below. Have fun!