The smell of hairspray is in the air. It is finally prom season for high school students. Though we’re too old to go, it’s still fun to reminisce on the prom days. Whether you had the worst time at prom or a blast at prom, it definitely caused you some amount of stress. Here are some of the most stressful parts of prom that helped create a lasting experience.

The dress

Spending $500 to find the right dress was always worth it. I mean, it’s as important as your wedding day, right? You had to top everyone and the only way to do that was to make sure your dress was pure Swarovski crystals. Once you bought it, it still needed to be hemmed. You spent hours finding expensive shoes that had to be beautiful, even though no one saw them and you took them off before the night was over.

The tan

You could never be dark enough for prom! You had a dilemma on your hands. Should you go pasty white or should you tan? Of course, you’d rather go tan! Did you want to be orange and smelly with a spray tan, or did you risk skin cancer and go to the tanning bed? Decisions, decisions.

The makeup

Makeup was so exciting! I loved spending over 15 minutes trying to stick on fake eyelashes! A makeup artist was hard to find, so you tried doing your makeup on your own. After accidentally contouring your face to look like an Oompa Loompa and making a smoky eye look like a panda’s markings, you finally found the right look.

The hair

If you wear it down, then it fell out before you got to the actual prom. If you wore it up, then you had to bring extra bobby pins because it still fell out. You made sure you had a picture of what hair you wanted, just so the lady could do the exact opposite of it. She never knew what you wanted without a picture. With it, she provided the worst possible hairstyle for you. The best part about prom was finding bobby pins in your hair for a week afterwards. It was like a gem mine in there!

The dinner

Do you know how hard it was to find a fancy restaurant for prom in a small town? You had to drive an hour to find a decent one. If you went as a group, then you had to make sure that everyone was happy with their meal. It couldn’t be too expensive or too far away. Dinner was likely the highlight of your prom night.

Of course, it depends on your experience. Maybe you had a good prom; maybe you had a bad prom. Either way, the memories will last forever. Remember, no matter how stressful prom was, it won’t matter in the long run. Prom teaches us valuable life lessons -- we are so petty to complain about getting dressed up and going to an event. Small things won’t matter in the end. You can have a good time if you let yourself. Most importantly, no one will care what you look like because we’re all sweaty in the end anyways.