After the promposals; after the tux rental, the dress shopping, the flowers, the shoes, the hair, the nails; after taking pictures on the quad, Williston’s senior class and their dates, looking picture perfect, finally left campus and headed to the Log Cabin in Holyoke, the location for this year’s prom.

Reactions to the annual event were almost universally positive. Junior Haley Beecher’s favorite part was “was dancing with all my friends and just having a good time. No one was talking about finals or school, it was just us living in the moment.”

Junior Ellie Scott agreed that being with her friends was her favorite part, while junior Lizzie Cuevas “loved seeing everyone all dressed up and happy.”

Junior Aidenne Alden liked that everyone really came together to have a good time no matter what grade or “group” they were a part of.  Her favorite part was when a really popular, throwback song came on, like [Miley Cyrus’] “Party in the U.S.A.”

“Everyone just started scream-singing the lyrics because we all knew them,” said Aidenne. “It was just a lot of fun and I got to make great memories with people who mean a lot to me.”

Junior Oliver Lawrence thought prom was “really fun because during the dance there was a really good vibe. You could feel that the seniors were really into their last dance, so that made it all fun.”

Senior Devin DeVerry “really enjoyed the free environment that let us do what we wanted within reason, whether that was taking pictures or dancing or sitting down and talking.”

Junior Brooke Leveillee liked the formality of the event, as well as “the excitement of seeing everybody different dresses and the buildup to that moment.”

Senior Molly Zawacki liked the size of prom. She said that there was “a small amount of people, but still enough to have a lot of fun!”

Before going to prom, many students had expectations about what it was going to be like. Many of those notions were disproven.

Senior Julien Nicolas expected it to be similar to the previous year’s prom. Devin thought that it would be overly structured and it would be hard to find and stay with his friends.

Other students did not know what to expect. Lizzie said, “At my old school, dances sucked. And I’ve never been to prom before. I know a lot of people always said it was fun but I wanted to experience it for myself.”

Some students thought prom exceeded their expectations. Oliver did not expect to have much fun at prom, but he said it ended up being great. It was senior Natalie Fontenot’s second prom experience. “I didn’t think anything could top last year,” she said. “I was wrong.”

There were, of course, some parts of prom that students did not like. Ellie wished that “we could choose how long we wanted to stay, but we couldn’t because of bus transportation.” Julien didn’t like how expensive it was.

Devin thought that there were a lot of songs that were more appropriate for the locker room than prom. PG Simone Barrett said that the DJ didn’t take anyone’s requests and played songs not many people wanted to dance to.

Some students offered their opinions on what they would like to change about prom in order to improve it for next year.

Haley “wished we could have had more people take pictures of us, because we had to wait in line for a while, and there was only one professional photographer.”

Aidenne wished that they could have gotten more time before dinner to take pictures before the sun went down. Oliver and junior Lydia Pollard both agreed that they did not like that they couldn’t stay outside for longer.

Senior Natalie Aquadro, one of the people who helped organize prom this year, also said that since people were getting tired towards the end, it would have been nice to end prom a half hour earlier.

However, almost all of the students agreed that the food was amazing. There were rolls and salad for an appetizer, and a steak, chicken, or vegetarian dinner option. There were also snacks, drinks and for dessert, ice cream with a brownie.

The one thing that made the night special for everyone was the location. “The location was perfect,” Aidenne said. “The view was breathtaking for pictures and the venue itself was classy and also set back from town which made it feel more secluded but in a good way.”