Five Favorites Friday....Homeschool Prom Edition...

So, here we are in the final countdown to Spring Fling 2010... The homeschool prom I am organizing. This is a first in our area... I don't know about ever, but in recent history. I am inventing the wheel here... I am hoping to set down the ground work for future years. We wanted to keep it affordable for the kids so we are only selling tickets for $10 each... that doesn't leave us with much to work with... Wanna do a prom on the cheap?

Here is the recipe:

1. Hire a Great DJ: If you live in the Clarksville, TN area I recommend King Entertainment. The event hasn't even happened yet, but we already feel blessed to have these neat people be part of our little event... They have really worked with us to make this event special. It is a husband/wife team who are just this side of saints... they put up with all our crazy requests, and even jumped through hoops when I got our meeting time wrong... Oh and did I mention he has not only been declared "cool" by the seniors helping to plan this... (high praise... I assure you) but he is a police officer... a "cool" police officer... who would have thought it? I don't think they have a website (y'all should get one..) but if you are local they are in the book...

2. Decorate on the cheap: Paper streamers... Tissue Paper Pom-Poms... bright colors that have a high impact... Here is our inspiration photo:

We are inside, and we didn't buy the paper lanterns, I just came back from day one of set up and we have achieved a similar effect... We used pink, yellow and spring blue... After hours logged at party supply and craft stores, the best places to shop and stay on budget were the Dollar Tree and Wal-Mart... We are working on a $50 decor budget... we spent every penny, but we got high impact and a lot for our money...

3. Find a "Free" Venue... We could have classed it up a lot by renting an event hall or banquet room, but we wanted to make it affordable. Churches are the best choice for low budget event rooms. We are having dancing and not playing all "Christian" music so that eliminated a lot of churches right away. The Clarksville Vineyard Christian Fellowship welcomed us with open arms...

One of my "seniors" goes to church there and they have a decent size homeschool community. We are blessed to have such a great, homeschool friendly church in our community.

4. Concessions not Refreshments... We will sell at concessions at cost rather then provide free refreshments. We went to GFS otherwise known as Gordon Food Service...

They are like Cosco or Sams Club, but they only carry food/restaurant stuffs and you don't need a membership... I call up our local one and told them what we were doing, what we wanted to serve and our budget and they helped us a lot. We have a ton of food and snacks on our $150 budget...

5. Open up the age range: You need a lot of kids to make a successful dance and if we had made it a senior prom we would have had about 12 kids... not the numbers we needed, and we may have gained about ten more if we had opened it up to the junior class... Our solution.. all homeschooled kids grades 9-12 and their guests may come... now we have like 60 kids coming... but how do we keep it special for the seniors? We are having a VIP area just for them... and how do you pick a prom queen or king? You don't we have dollar store tiaras for all he senior girls and party favor "medals" for our prom kings... It's silly and a little (to quote the girlies) ghetto... but fun....

Well that's it guys... I am gonna be away from my blog for a few days... with the Prom and Easter my plate is pretty full, so I'll see y'all Monday. (I'll let you know how it goes and hopefully share some pictures...)

Thanks for listening,