Seven years ago I attended my senior prom. I know. My friends and I all went together and had the best night ever. We goofy danced the night away laughing and being ridiculous.

LOOK AT THOSE BABY FACES. And s/o to myself for going hard putting that blue and green eyeshadow allllll the way up to my brow.

Did I mention I won Prom Queen that year? Much to my complete surprise. They gave balloons that year for some reason.

Fast forward seven years and not much has changed. Some of us are married, all of us have moved out of tiny Liberty City (PRAISE HANDS), some of us are in grad school, all of us are still trying to figure everything out. But we’re all still friends. We’d always joked about wouldn’t it be so funny if we got dressed up in our old prom dresses and went to Outback and then went dancing hahaha we’re so funny, but we never actually did it.

But thank god for millennials and their incessant need to recreate the past for nostalgia’s sake. My friend Chaney sent us all a link that The Highball in Austin was throwing it’s very own prom! FINALLY. My dreams had come true. Nevermind that not a single dress I wore to all four proms still fits me. IT’S FINE.

I live in Dallas, my sister lives in Waco, and our four friends all live in Austin. (Stop trying to make me move there because I won’t.) So Friday afternoon I drove down to Waco and we made the horrific trek to Austin. If you didn’t know, the stretch of I-35 between Waco and Austin is currently only two lanes for MILES because they’re widening it. What should only take an hour and a half takes nearly twice that. Rap music + good company makes the drive bearable.

We get to Austin and we all look amazing.

I can’t even believe we’re going to an adult prom. I was entirely too excited. Instead of a cheesy steakhouse, we strolled casually into Shake Shack in suits and gowns like real ballers do.

We then walked around the corner to The Highball. Everyone looked amazing and carnation corsages abounded. There was an enormous stretch limo and the driver was sitting in the front, engine running, watching Netflix. Amazing. I don’t think I’d actually ever been in a limo until this night. The photographer loved us and climbed in the limo and took all kinds of insane pictures.

PHOTO CREDIT THE HIGHBALL AUSTIN

Everything was absolutely perfect. With our ticket we each got a corsage and a very cheesy moment of pinning them on our dates. They weren’t letting anyone in that wasn’t wearing prom attire. Hil.Arious. We got all of our couple photos taken to update the ones from seven years ago.

PHOTO CREDIT THE HIGHBALL AUSTIN

We wrote our names down to be submitted for King and Queen, crossing my fingers my sister and I would get called up. We passed the giant punch bowl, grabbed a drink and heard the ‘principal’ call our name to the stage. MY SISTER AND I WERE NOMINATED PROM KING AND QUEEN. It was the greatest moment of my life. After a few, ahem, embarrassing challenges against the two other couples, we came in second. They had pity on us and gave us a crown anyway.

PHOTO CREDIT THE HIGHBALL AUSTIN

We spent the first half of the night listening to the coolest band and the second half reliving our early 2000s. The club starting lightening up at about 12:30 but we were determined to stay the whole night. We danced our way silly and took over the empty stage rethrowing the confetti they used to congratulate the King and Queen.

I couldn’t have asked for a better night. It was truly A Night To Remember. (OHHHHHH THAT WAS OUR 2009 PROM THEME! Full circle.)

PHOTO CREDIT THE HIGHBALL AUSTIN

I love these idiots so much.

I wouldn’t be surprised if we ran with our original idea and got dressed up like this to go out on a regular night. Outback this time.

xx