The Barn Prom!

The kids wanted something special for their graduation party after enduring several awkward junior high dances over the years...they were secretly hoping this wasn't going to be a lame gathering.  I think the parent hosted graduation dance was a beautiful evening and I think the kids would agree.  

 We rented The Barn by Two Brothers, and with the generosity of it's owner, Lisa Bobel Hearn and her kind husband, Tim, together with parents, a cute DJ and her dad, our ever dependable photograper,  Karen Schwartz, and a little bit of magic... we created a perfect night for the class of 2016!  Take a peek!

The excitement of the arrivals, the parents and photographers snapping pictures...

How did they turn into young adults so quickly?

    

except for these two...forever young!

Let the fun begin...we kept parents to a minimum and let them enjoy themselves...

Those shoes!  30 minutes later...my favorite picture of the evening!

And then we added a few more adults into the room and turned off the bright lights...they had a ball!

We set up the photo booth in the gazebo outside and it quickly became 

a popular spot for the kids and parents!

Pretty posin'...

 

 Decorations and dining details...

Because the venue was so beautiful, I didn't need to do a whole lot...

We used these beautiful stairs as the backdrop for the arrival pictures 

and just added a pennant banner.

Lanterns, more pennant banners and a chalkboard welcome sign make the entry festive.

Chunky moss wreaths were hung on the doors with mini pennant banners.

Festival lights and pennant banners were hung from the center of the room.

Bandana table cloths, log slices and small lanterns topped the tables and then moss balls, fresh flowers and votives completed the tablescape.   

We kept it easy...they kids enjoyed a candy bar with bottled and canned drinks.  

Pizza was brought in at 9:00pm

My thanks to all the parents who worked so hard to put on this lovely night for our kids, to Lisa and Tim for their lovely barn and supplies.  I think we can safely say that our sons and daughters had the time of their young lives!

Digital Decorations…

I received a text from a fellow junior high mom that she was just told that she was in charge of table decorations for the 9th grade graduation reception and they didn’t have a lot of money. Oh, and she needs to make about 30 of these!

I’m all for not spending lots of bucks on decorations and then recycling them whenever possible. There’s so much waste on something that most people won’t even remember an hour after they had to sit there and look at it for 60 minutes… much less the following year.

Paper and cardstock are great options for decorations and especially if your school will help you with the printing and maybe even the manpower to cut out the shapes and images, gluing things together and assembly line production from careful students.

I suggested that they reuse some clay pots the school had spray painted silver and make an accordion pleated sleeve from cardstock to camouflage. I created a mortar board and diploma from paper and hot glued them to skewers found at Wally World. The pic below was just a prototype but I included the school’s logo, the class year, etc. and made each one two sided. I also took chenille stems and twirled them around a pencil and took shredded paper and used to cover up the pot. The skewers are anchored in the pot with newspaper.