Prom Birthday Party for Tweens

I don’t know how it’s possible, but my twins are TWELVE! Time truly does fly. We’ve gotten in the habit of throwing elaborate (aka EXPENSIVE) parties for our kids in the past, so this year we told them we were going to throw a party on a budget. I’m not sure who came up with the idea for a prom party during our brainstorming session, but it is a BRILLIANT idea for this age group.

A chance to dress up and act like a true teenager?! And be so fancy and formal? And get gussied up in full makeup and up-dos?

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Here are some ideas that can make this prom party extra fancy and special!

• Thrifted formal dresses (my girls found their adult size 2 dresses at a thrift store, but many of the other girls at the party used my old prom and bridesmaid dresses that I had saved over the years, so that’s another option!)
• Charcuterie board – easy and so fancy!
• Chocolate fountain (borrowed from a friend!)
• Disco ball (rented from local home rental place for $25 bucks) – or purchase similar here
• Plastic Champagne flutes (dirt cheap from Dollar Tree, or here on Amazon)
• Balloon arch / photo wall (here’s a similar one from Amazon)
• Limo (we ALMOST secured a limo ride around town, but they still had fun without it)
• Corsages – we had a little DIY station for them to make their own (see below) or you could purchase a variety pack here)
• Photo op props (I wish I had ordered these in time! They would have been so fun!)
• Karaoke machine (already had)

We really didn’t do any other decorations, but we feel so blessed to have the perfect house for this type of event. Everything felt so formal and beautiful!

FOOD

Our main expense was the snacks and charcuterie board. It helps to shop at Aldi and dollar stores! Nick made the big butcherblock board, so I don’t have a link for it. But it’s so fun to fill up with goodies!

I asked around and found a friend that had a chocolate fountain we could borrow! SCORE! You might be able to check with your local home rental and see if they have one, but ours only had a champagne fountain (which would have been fun too!) We used 4 bags of chocolate chips on the chocolate fountain, and had strawberries and nilla wafers for dipping. Of course the kids dipped evvvverything on that charcuterie board into chocolate, and I’m totally ok with that. ) By the end it was a huge mess and so much evidence that they loved it!

DISCO BALL

Our local home rental place had this disco ball for rent for $25 bucks for the weekend! SCORE! We hung the disco ball from the mount on our overhead projector, but you could just as easily install one of these hooks. They even come with an anchor so you don’t need to find a stud in the ceiling.

On the windows/doors that didn’t have a blind, we taped garbage bags over them to reduce light and allow the sparkles from the disco ball to be bright. Priorities! 😉 Oh and don’t forget to push your furniture out of the living room so you have a bigger dance floor!

PHOTO BACKDROP / BALLOON ARCH

The balloon arch backdrop went up so easily with a kit and simple instructions. It was our first time tackling a balloon arch, and it makes you feel like a true party-throwing boss. And you don’t need a curved staircase to make this a success. You could do a balloon arch on any blank wall, doorway, or corner of a room!

WRIST CORSAGES

I considered doing a full corsage-making activity for the girls as a part of the prom party, but I decided against having them do any crafting while dressed to the nines in their prom dresses. We don’t want to ruin those formal gowns before the ball even starts! In hindsight, I wish I had just ordered this variety pack of wrist corsages for $10 bucks, but it was also kinda fun DIYing a little something for the party too!

I bought super cheap floral stems at Walmart (including a couple stems of greens and baby’s breath), and used these bracelets that are made for this! Using a wire cutter, I clipped off the big flowers right at the base, and saved the leaves from those stems. I also cut the greens and baby’s breath into small bits.

I grabbed a little bunch of greens and a sprig of baby’s breath and secured it with the bendable wire tabs on the corsage bracelet…

I squeezed in some hot glue under those stems, then hot glued some more greens facing the other direction…

At this point, these are ready to add the big center flower! I made a bunch of these ‘blanks’ in advance, and when the party started, I had each young lady choose her flower to put in the center to coordinate with her dress.

Then I just put a generous dollop of hot glue right in the center, and plopped that baby down. I held it tight for about 30 seconds, and popped it on her wrist!

Della models in her street clothes.

I’m not the kinda mom that has extravagant goodie bags to send home after birthday parties, but I figured these prom corsages were a great momento from the evening!

HAIR AND MAKEUP

Getting my girls all gussied up was probably just as fun for me as it was for my girls. I don’t usually let them wear any makeup, but this was a special exception! I did a headband braid in Della’s hair, and curled the back. And she even wanted to wear my wedding earrings which made me so happy!

Paisley asked my sister-in-law-slash-neighbor to do an updo, and it could not be more gorgeous with her naturally curly hair! So many details!

I talked Nick into dressing up in his tux to greet the girls at the door and give them a glass of champagne, and he talked my brother and nephew into joining! How cute are our 3 butlers?!

I think it’s safe to say that this was the social event of the summer! At least for our tween girls. They danced the night away, played balloon volleyball, took pictures, ate wayyy too many sweets, and finished the night off with karaoke.

Our guestlist involved 10 tween girls, and of those, 9 were able to make it to our prom party. I’d say that’s a pretty good turnout for a July weekend! And I’m so grateful so many sweet friends were able to come and celebrate my twins’ 12th birthday. What a special night!

I highly recommend throwing a formal dance or “prom” for your teen or tween! I can confidently say it will be a blast and will be a core memory for sure.

~Bethany

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