<p>If I were doing the asking, I would rather do so by text because it would be less awkward and humiliating if the person said no. (I don’t know how guys get up the nerve to ask girls out, I really don’t!)</p>
<p>“Good grief, if the boys have to do this for high school, what will the girls expect for a marriage proposal?”</p>
<p>lol. About 3 years ago were were a Mackinaw Island for the day. My son who was 10 was sitting on a bench. He saw a young man get down on one knee and ask his GF to marrying him. Right in front of him!..DS got to see him put the ring on her finger and everything…DS said she looked really happy. :x </p>
<p>As a girl who received a “big ask” for prom, I absolutely HATED it. I would have MUCH preferred a text message or just being asked without all the razzle dazzle. It was this ridiculous thing where the guy gave each of his friends a rose and had them hand them to me as I walked down the hallway, where he was waiting at the end with a cake that said “prom?” on it. I was still painfully shy at the time and there were ~25 people watching, including my choir and band directors, so I really didn’t have an opportunity to say no. And I wasn’t really friendly with or all that fond of the guy that asked me. </p>
<p>I’ve never heard of any of this. Is it a regional thing?</p>
<p>We are in the Seattle area and it’s a thing here. My son has done 2 of them - both with friends helping to orchestrate.</p>
<p>It’s a bit of a thing in the Pittsburgh suburbs, but not generally as over the top as some areas I’ve heard of. Most seem to involve a big sign at a sports event, writing something on a car windshield or locker, etc. Older D’s boyfriend told her she had to be more creative to ask him to the Sadie Hawkins dance, so she asked someone else instead. I think the over the top proms have become ridiculous.</p>
<p>2 girls, 4 proms (granted, they were pre-YouTube and iPhone proliferation!), and the wildest ask was “Prom?” written with a window marker on one car. I think the rest were in person "asks"that were accompanied by a single rose handed directly. 
Glad there was no drama!!!</p>
<p>I’m in the curmudgeon camp. And I know from my own long-ago experience that anticipating the prom is a lot more fun than actually attending prom. However, my kids’ high school has a low-key way of doing it that is probably more fun than the proms I remember. Some of the kids do a dramatic prom ask–my son’s date to junior prom last year asked him by baking a single layer cake and writing “PROM?” in frosting on it–but most are more traditional.</p>
<p>The night of the event, everybody gathers at school or at their friends’ homes to take pictures, then most kids board a chartered motor coach that takes them safely to and from the prom venue, usually a nice restaurant about an hour away. It’s more of a party with friends than a big, fraught boy/girl drama.</p>
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<p>A marriage proposal - yes. A prom date? It is just a date. Or because a potential rejection could happen via text?</p>
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<p>Prom isn’t “just a date” unless it is just two pals going as friends…and then it really isn’t a date, either. Prom is a big deal with folks spending hundreds, sometimes thousands, of dollars on the whole get-up…super-fancy dress, shoes, up-do, make-up, limo, dinner, tix, pictures, after-prom party, etc. </p>
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<p>^ thank goodness in our town it isn’t.</p>
<p>I got home from work to find that my son had a homecoming ask in window paint on his car . . . a girl from another high school. Ha! ;)) </p>
<p>Also have not heard of the “big ask” til now, but boy am I ever glad this is something in our distant rearview mirror!</p>
<p>I’ll take the orchestrated homecoming “ask” any day over Texas homecoming “mums” - I had forgotten about them until a friend from Texas whose daughter is now college junior shared this link for laughs. Maybe the true test of a relationship for a teenage boy is if she is suitably over the moon at getting the Adventure Time “mum”. That’s how you know that she’s a keeper. :x </p>
<p><a href=“27 Mums That Nailed The Whole Homecoming Thing”>27 Mums That Nailed The Whole Homecoming Thing;
<p>The big homecoming or prom ‘ask’ is a thing in Madison, WI.</p>
<p>High school graduation parties are also a thing here. Weekends of parties in late May and June, and carloads of kids going from party to party, each with a different theme; some dessert only, or a candy ‘bar’ party, or featuring The Pancake Man from Iowa (<a href=“http://www.pancakeman.net/”>http://www.pancakeman.net/</a>). Whole class invited through Facebook, and parents often invited too. Group party with 2-3 kids and a ‘shrine’ table for each of photos and accomplishments/certificates on display with a flag or banner or shield or sweatshirt emblazoned with the college name; also featuring a decorated box for well-wishers to insert cards (with or without money). Popular to have a keg of rootbeer and make your own rootbeer floats.</p>