The 2024 prom theme for John Champe was an Enchanting Knight, which featured elements from the Disney movie Tangled. The dance took place on Saturday, April 13, at the Dulles Airport Marriott.
As prom is one of the biggest events of the school year, with juniors and seniors planning for the night months in advance, the dance is highly anticipated.
To begin the night, the pre-prom plans consisted of many seniors and some juniors taking pictures in Washington D.C. A lot of groups that go together either decide to go or not to go to the actual dance in advance, however, if they decide they don’t want to attend the dance, they still have the fun experience of getting dressed up and going to dinner with their friends and some dates.
If groups did decide to attend the dance, they would enter the hotel and would be greeted with a sign directing them to the location of the ballroom where the dance was hosted.
The way the dance was organized was done well, with Champe staff at the entrance to collect tickets and cross names off lists, and directly behind them were some backdrops and props for photos.
The actual dance was hosted in a room connected to the photo section and was decorated accordingly with the theme of the movie Tangled. There were a good amount of people there, and everybody reconnected with friends from other groups and enjoyed the music from the DJ.
There were other photo-ops in the actual dance room, decorated with balloons and streamers, and there were a bunch of colored lights all over the place, creating a nice ambiance.
Adding to the photo opportunities, there was also a 3600 video station to get more fun videos with friends and props. I thought this was a cool addition, and I did see a lot of people using it throughout the time I was there.
There was a food set up, with trays of finger food and some drinks available. I didn’t try the food, but I saw that it was provided by the hotel staff. The staff was attentive to the tables and refilled different things when they were getting low, which was a nice service provided by the hotel.
There were small tables set up throughout the room with decorations of flowers and lights that also corresponded with the theme, which is largely where friends would hang out if they weren’t on the dance floor.
The DJ was set up at the far end of the room, right next to the dance floor. The music was mostly modern and popular songs that everybody seemed to enjoy, and there were always people dancing to whatever was playing.
Overall, the dance was organized nicely, with opportunities for pictures, dancing, and food available. I think that the theme was there, but the decorations definitely could have been done a little better, with more to fit what Tangled was actually like and the atmosphere of it.
I think more fairy lights and more streamers would have made it simple but effective and would have just added more to the overall look of it. Also, there’s not much that the decorations could have done to hide the brown carpet floor of the room, but distracting from that with more decoration and hang-ups would have been nicer.
Last year, prom was hosted at Willow Creek Barn, and in my opinion, this event building was a lot nicer than this year’s prom at the hotel. However, with the room that the class council’s were given, they did a decent job and made the best of it.
The annual prom princess and prince were announced, and Kiera Van Sanford and Danny Hilliard were crowned and then led a dance in the middle of the floor.
The tradition of prom queen and king is long-standing, but it is nice to make a twist on it and create more youthful and fun titles for the nominations and voting.
This was my first prom attended, so there is not much for me to base actual comp
arisons on from previous years or even from what other schools have done, but from what I saw, I did think that the class councils definitely put effort into planning, decorating, and organizing a fun night for Champe upperclassmen.
Although I think they could have found a nice location so that they could do more with decorating and overall appearance, they did make the best of it, and most of the photo-ops and props were cute and I did see many people using them with the backdrops anyways.
To sum up the night, I think that everybody I saw there was having a lot of fun and had a good time socializing at a place to get dressed up. The actual dance was just a little bit underwhelming, however, the effort and planning that was put into it to make the most of the location was still seen and still led to a fun night with many memories to take away from it.
