<p>Ds2 is a junior. How many weeks in advance of the prom should he ask the girl? He asked me, and I told him to give her at least a month, but now I’m wondering if he should ask even earlier. They are both juniors, they’re not dating, but he obviously has his sights set on this particular girl and doesn’t want to be beat to the punch, so to speak. Prom isn’t a big deal among the junior class at his school, though it is a junior-senior prom.</p>
<p>Give sufficient enough time to enable the girl plenty of opportunities to argue with her mom about the dress.</p>
<p>Why not first trying a few dates. Why would he want to go with someone he barely knows? Could be a long night. Don’t HS kids have GFs/BFs anymore?</p>
<p>barrons-some kids date, some kids don’t. Many kids in our high school go to prom with friends and have a great time. I don’t see any problem with that.</p>
<p>barrons, from your fingers to ds’s eyes! He knows her well. She’s part of a circle of friends. For instance, they were two of 11 or 12 who went to breakfast yesterday. Apparently, she’s liked him most of the year, but no one clued him in. He has shown some interest in her, so I think she knows her feelings are reciprocal. There’s just not a dating culture at his school. His older brother didn’t have a single date in HS until his senior prom.</p>
<p>I think at our school it is usually 3 or 4 weeks before the event.</p>
<p>The one public and private (Catholic) high school in our town both have traditions that call for the boys to ask the girls to the prom or to homecoming in unique, sweet, or sometimes prankish ways. Your school may also be such a school so you may want to ask around. One year, my S had the girl get summoned to the principle’s office. The principle had agreed to participate, but I cannot believe my S asked him to do so, and even more shocked that he agreed. Another year he filled the girl’s bedroom with a hundred balloons, with the help from a couple of his friends and permission from her parents. </p>
<p>My S had both male and female friends and his dates were with these girls within his circle of friends. I don’t think he ever asked a girl more than about 3 weeks in advance to either homecoming or prom. Sorry ladies, but my S was a major procrastinator in HS and still is now that he’s in college. I’m sure they were scrambling to shop for that dress and get all the finishing touches lined up. Most of the time within my S’s group, the girls knew the invite was coming. “Feelers” usually got sent out in advance by one of his friends.</p>
<p>Y’all are making me feel better. He has a friend picked out (good friend who dares the girl’s best friend) to do “reconnaisance” and shoo away any other would-be suitors. I guess he’s good with a month out.</p>
<p>At my high school the guys tend to ask about 2 months before the prom. Prom is a big deal at my school so it might not be the “thing” to do where he goes to school, but he should ask her long enough before to make sure that he has a date to prom! My cousin couldn’t find anyone to go to prom with last year until two weeks before because every girl he asked already had a date, and he only started asking about a month before.</p>
<p>I am already seeing prom invite pictures on Facebook. It’s a tradition here, and in other towns I guess since I am seeing similar photos from those towns too, to ask in a “romantic” way like jshain’s town. Some past years kids have put notes on car windows (boring), recorded the invite in the recording device you can put in Build-A-Bears, spelled out prom in rose pedals somewhere, etc.</p>
<p>No offense to anyone, but I hate that trend. A 16yo is nervous enough asking, much less being required to make a spectacle of it. What if she says no?</p>
<p>Youdon’tsay–I get you–sort of like when the guy asks the girl to marry her on the jumbotron at the baseball game. It doesn’t have to be a huge public thing even around here. It could just be some flowers brought to her house, etc.</p>
<p>I have a friend whose ds had just started dating a girl in the spring of their junior year a couple of months before prom. He asked her whether she wanted to go to prom, but she said no. Turns out she didn’t say yes because he hadn’t asked her in a “big enough” way. She told him that a year later. Talk about cutting off your nose to spite your face! That story totally tainted the cuteness of the hoopla for me!</p>
<p>I would ask 2 months before the prom, or at least closer to 2 months than 1 month. You don’t want some other guy to ask her first.</p>
<p>At our school, if asked in a romantic way, the girl never says no. For my sons, their friends that are girls, helped them with the creative aspects and helped them to carry out the actual asking. In most cases, the girl was pre-screened so that a yes was assured. Once, in the pre-screening process, a girl made it clear that she was hoping someone else was going to ask her, so S2 asked someone else. My favorite one was when S2 asked a girl friend who he had known since kindergarten. We had a picture of the two of them from kindergarten, so we got a 2 picture frame and put that picture on one side and then the other side had a note (or maybe even a poem, of course written by someone besides my son) asking her to prom. Then she could put the prom picture in the other side. They also did the Build-a-Bear (the bear was in a tux, super cute!), balloons, a note in class each period with flowers and the invite the last period, cakes, cookies, etc… S3 got asked to WInter Formal on the overhead projector in math class. A friend got asked in Spanish (the teacher handed out a “pop quiz” and the last question was “so and so will you go to Prom?”).</p>
<p>The prom invitations started this week at D2s school and the prom isn’t until the end of April.</p>
<p>I really don’t like this trend of over the top prom invitations. I think it’s so stressful for the boys & I think it’s setting the girls up for expecting hoopla for everything. It’s just a school dance for goodness sake. But I also don’t like Valentines Day, Mothers Day and other Hallmark holidays. </p>
<p>And what’s with juniors going to the prom now? In my day & place it was the senior prom and the only way juniors went was if they were going with a senior.</p>
<p>I’m not a huge proponent of high school dating and making a huge deal out of dating. I like it when the culture is kids going together instead of these pressured high romance, teen movie things. </p>
<p>That being said, last year a girl asked my son. He didn’t really want to go at all, which is why he didn’t ask anyone and he said yes. He had an okay time, but said it would have been more fun if he went with someone he liked. </p>
<p>This year there is a girl he likes, though not a girlfriend she is more than a friend. Her parents are super duper strict. As in she’s going to the local college after high school because they won’t let her go away. </p>
<p>Apparently he has already asked her to the prom! I laughed when I heard he asked her so soon, but he wanted time to go out with her and get to know her. </p>
<p>I’d ask earlier rather than later. Especially if the school is really date oriented.</p>
<p>So much depends on the culture at your particular high school. At ours, a month out was plenty for proms and formals. No hoopla, thank goodness. A lot of the kids went in groups, even same-sex groups, so the anxiety and expectations were not that great. I liked that.
If your son would be disappointed if this particular girl goes with someone else, I’d probably suggest that he ask a bit earlier than the norm at your school, just to be safe.</p>
<p>If he really wants to go with her, I don’t see any harm asking. D1 had a very good male friend who has a girl friend that lives 500+ miles away. She joked with him all year they would go to the prom together. About 2 month before the prom another girl in their circle formally asked him. She was crushed and had to get up the nerve to ask another guy who she was good, but not great, friends with. Moral of the story is the early bird gets the worm!</p>
<p>Update: OK, so I actually got to see the two in action last night. He and a couple of friends went to her sports scrimmage after school, and then she and her bff went to ds’s game. After the game, she and the bff hung with our group (three boys, three parents) while they awaited their ride home. Lots of laughter, easy conversation in the group. They would have a great time. 
I think between he and his good friend who dates the bff, they’ll make it happen. When her dad showed up, I made a point of introducing myself to him, then ds jumped in and introduced himself and shook his hand! lol Smart boy! On the way home, dh and I said, “Why wait until prom to ask her out?” 
I’m going to suggest mid-March, about six weeks before the prom.</p>
<p>I like that she’s not a fussy girl (no doubt that’s one thing he likes about her, too) so I doubt that he’ll be forced to do the matching vest to her dress thing. Ds1 did a classic James Bond and did a pocket square to match the dress. Very sharp.</p>