By Colleen Nakhooda

After attending two extremely different homecomings this year, my friends and I experienced everything from the awkward date pictures, the crazy dance circles, stress over the dress, and an interesting series of carpools. Due to COVID, it was most of the 10th grade’s first homecoming ever. I would a hundred percent say that my grade made way too big of a deal about our first homecoming. If I am remembering correctly, we began talking about whether to wear heels or sneakers in the first few weeks of August. Dates had become nothing but an absolute disaster, fighting over which boys to bring, or just having to respond to people five hundred times that “no I DO NOT HAVE A DATE. Single lady over here…” (cough cough me at HB hoco…) Anyways, in this article I will be reviewing my experiences at the two homecoming events that I attended: University School and our very own Hathaway Brown homecoming. 

The Preppers Experience: 

Rating: 5/10 

  • Awk interactions with other girls 
  • Date was not really matching the vibe you know? Very nice but something off
  • Music was just not it (neither was HB’s don’t worry) 
  • Did not like my dress to much so I felt less confident
  • And a whole lot of walking around 
  • After party was super fun with plenty of food including Chick Fil A, and super fun games we played manhunt and hide and go seek and had a bonfire super fun!

If you asked me what my expectations were for my first homecoming dance, I would say that I would be extremely embarrassed at how much I over-thought the event. My phone continued to blow up as the multiple different group chats, one with girls, and one with girls and guys, labeled “US hoco fr” would continue to ask fifty-two questions about what time, place, ticket entries, dress, dates, and food would be a part of the event. Finally, once the time was set, and my date was set up for me… we figured out the plans. I never anticipated the getting ready process to be as nerve wracking and stressful as it was. I switched my dress three times in the span of an hour, got self-conscious and decided to do the last minute run to the Beachwood mall and got another dress, and so on and so forth. I cannot tell you how many times throughout the two homecomings I ended up in the “wait I already bought that dress in black” situation. I swear literally every teenage girl in America likes the same three dresses on the same three websites. Here is the dress I ended up picking along with a group of HB girls that went too! 

The Blazers Experience: 

Rating: 7/10 

  • There was no food at all which made dinner difficult 
  • The music was not great 
  • Ended up getting rained out and we were shipped off pretty quickly… 
  • The set up of the dance and senior theme was AMAZING and felt super magical and movielike 
  • I couldn’t tell if I loved or hated the dance circle that would just randomly start forming and proceed to me getting pushed back and forth between a bunch of jumping senior boys 
  • I loved my dress! 
  • it was way more fun being with all of my friends from different grades
  • Felt more confident and comfortable being somewhere that was familiar 
  • Took plenty of fun, and not awkward pictures since I went by myself and had fun with my friends instead of with a date 

At this point I could not tell you why I had already felt so worn down on homecoming after just going to one ever in my life. I know for a fact that my entire grade overhyped homecoming in general and we made it way more big of a deal then it really was. I was so nervous about being one of the only girls without a date, but once I got to HB and was surrounded by everyone I knew and a school I felt comfortable in, it was way easier to have fun and let loose a little bit! Once again the entire five hours of getting ready and 9,000 pictures were taken before heading to HB. But I ended up loving my sparkly dress and enjoyed the silly fun with my friends and even some of their dates too! I do have to say that HB’s homecoming was pretty good being that it was very different this year compared to past years. I do wish a clean playlist by the kids could have been played instead of the DJ since we had so many song requests the list began to overflow. And I was bummed when it started raining, yet relieved that I could go home and get some food. I would just like to mention that being able to wear sneakers to homecoming might have been my favorite thing EVER. I finally was just a wee bit taller than all of the boys instead of 9000 feet in heels… Anyways, HB hoco was definitely different than expected, but ended up being super fun and very well run. Also did anyone else just not comprehend how to put the boutonniere on or just me? Here are some pictures from this homecoming!