Love is in the air with 2024 Promposals
This year, juniors and seniors swept the dance floor on prom night as an exciting end to the school year. But, for the students who attended as couples, they made sure they had their date locked in before attending. The students pulled some of the most creative promposals to date and here are just a few to highlight.
Reigning Homecoming monarch, senior Michael Bongiorno, pulled out all the stops for fellow member of the court, senior Allie Mohelknitzky for this promposal. After Mohelknitzky dropped a couple of inconspicuous hints their junior year, Bongiorno worked up the nerve to ask her out. Bongiorno centered his promposal around Mohelknitzky’s favorite animal: a panda. Once he morphed into a panda himself through a onesie, Bongiorno focused on creating an original sign as his official question. “I was freestyling and came up with the line ‘I’m just a panda trying to land a date with you’ and that eventually made it to the poster,” Bongiorno said.
The promposal took place at Mohelknitzky’s house where Bongiorno intentionally held the sign upside down in hopes of making Mohelknitzky laugh. She, however, was not aware of this intent. “The poster was also upside down when I opened the door so that gave us something to laugh about together too,” Mohelknitzky said.
From enemies to lovers, junior couple Shea Grohs and Neil Saji channeled their inner “Bridgerton” styled romance for their promposal. “First, I got Isabella Boggs to hand out Lady Whistledown’s newspaper. This paper defines Shea as the season’s diamond, AKA the prettiest girl who is chosen by the queen. Shea then followed a path of lanterns to where I was standing, wearing a Victorian era costume that resembled Anthony, a character from the show. The poster requested for her to ‘shine with me at Prom,’” Saji said.
After dating for 11 months, the attention to detail from Saji is not surprising, but these affections were not always so prominent. “We met in a pretty funny way because he didn’t really like me and I didn’t like him. We were sort of enemies until the end of last year when he became really obsessed with me and begged me to go out with him after we went to see ‘The Little Mermaid’ with our friends,” Grohs said.
From an inside joke about funerals to a homemade cardboard coffin, Kai Chung and Lucy He’s, juniors, promposal was to die for. With almost a full schedule of classes together, one could say they were “destined” to meet and the two celebrate their seven months on May 13th. After having planned the promposal for over two weeks, the final preparation came into full force two days prior. “For my promposal, I set up my backyard to reenact a funeral. I had set up candles to lead to the backyard from the garage, and then in my main backyard I set up chairs and had a little table with a picture of me as if I had died. The main part though is I built a cardboard coffin out of boxes and I painted it black so that it looked like a real coffin and then once Lucy came close to the coffin, I hopped out of the coffin with the poster ‘I am dying to go to prom with you’,” Chung said.
However, the couple did not have the traditional prom experience. “Instead of going to prom, we still got dressed up and went to take pictures with people, then afterwards we went to see Kai’s grandparents and they took more photos of us, and then we got WingStop,” He said.
To make the promposal even more everlasting for the two, Chung’s turf took on a new look. “They spray painted the coffin with black paint and they got it on the grass in his backyard,” He said. “They had to re-paint the grass with green spray paint.”
As the night clicked away through love songs, the couples created lasting memories as they enjoyed prom together. “Allie and I got to slow dance to Lover which was probably the best three minutes of my life,” Bongiorno said.
Beneath a canopy of string lights, the rustling of glittery dresses and the taps of dress shoes blended with the tunes of the DJ booth, setting the stage for the timeless tradition of prom night. Taking place at the Camarillo Airport, attendees were bound to create unforgettable memories and emerge in the magic of nostalgia.
Amidst the jumble of laughter and music, there was one name that ringed through the crowd in anticipation of prom queen: Shriya Rajesh, senior. “There were a lot of other people that I thought were gonna win, so I was shocked. It’s like something you only dream of winning, so it was really cool for me to actually get that,” Rajesh said.
In pursuit of a stress-free prom day, Lindsay Freedman, senior, kickstarted her morning preparation early to avoid any potential mishaps or time crunches. “I did not want to be really stressed this year, so I started getting ready really early in the morning. I wore a sparkly green dress with a flowy bottom,” Freedman said.
While having a date may be fun, whether or not someone has one should not determine their prom experience. “Don’t worry about getting a date. Honestly, it’s so much more fun with friends and also don’t stress, like stuff is probably bound to go wrong,” Freedman said.
Prom is notorious for evoking feelings of nostalgia about high school and for Sydney Scott, junior, it was no different. “I felt a lot of nostalgia and heartwarming emotions seeing all of my friends together, and with a lot of them being seniors it made me think back on all of the good memories I have had with them,” Scott said.
Although over-analyzing one’s own every move often feels like human nature, Rajesh shares the beauty in letting go and focusing on the rhythm of the beat. “Just have fun and dance like nobody’s watching, cause honestly nobody’s watching,” Rajesh said.
