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closeA modest prom
Four hundred area Mormon teens gather for an alternative dance
Avani Nadkarni
Lauren Webber was not happy with her hair. The 18-year-old stood in front of the bathroom mirror in her family’s South Hill home, wielding a sparkly purple curling iron. “I’ve curled the same piece, like, a million times,” she groaned dejectedly. “I think this is as good as it’s going to get.”
Webber, an Emerald Ridge High School senior, is, like so many other young women, preparing for the prom. She chattered about her countdown to graduation, her makeup and her ability to play the violin as she cranked up her iPod Touch speakers.
About two hours later, Webber was attending a prom that was vastly different from the Emerald Ridge prom she’ll attend in a couple weeks. She was at a dance hosted by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, known more commonly as the Mormon church. Nearly 400 Mormon 16-to-18-year-olds from Puyallup to Federal Way ate dinner and danced amongst a 10-foot-tall Eiffel Tower replica and hundreds of red, white and black balloons. It looks like a regular 2009 prom — but it isn’t.
The Mormon prom began in 2003 when adults from six area stakes, or church branches, two from Puyallup and one each from Tacoma, Graham, Lakewood and Federal Way, decided to give their youth an alternative to their schools’ proms.
“Their school proms are getting a little bit more risque,” prom organizer Anni Marttala said. “We believe in being modest.”
Each stake is assigned a different task each year and more than 150 volunteers work as decorators, cooks and servers. This year, the volunteers worked for weeks, decorating both the South Hill church where the dinner was served and the Sumner church where the dance was held, plus creating a gourmet menu. The parents are happy to volunteer, knowing their children will be comfortable and safe at the event.
“I know when she goes to the church prom, there will be no music with questionable lyrics,” Webber’s mother Charissa explained as she waited for her daughter to get ready. “I feel totally comfortable with her there.”
Soon after, Webber emerged at the bottom of the stairs in her family’s home wearing, in church lingo, a “modest” dress — mid-calf length, cut high in the front with short sleeves. She found it at Beehive Books & More, a Mormon store in Edgewood. The dress she’s wearing to Emerald Ridge’s prom is being altered to put sleeves on, she said. Shopping can be difficult for Webber, a problem she discovered while at the mall with her non-Mormon friends.
“It’s hard to find a cute modest dress at regular stores,” Webber said. “But my friends know and they’re supportive. They’d find a dress with sleeves and come running, ‘Lauren! Lauren! It has sleeves!’ I totally like (the other) styles, but I wouldn’t feel comfortable wearing that.”
She attended the Mormon prom in a group of six — three boys and three girls — but she insisted that no one in her group went as dates, although many other attendees did. For her Emerald Ridge prom she is going with a date, a male non-Mormon friend. Webber, who has attended two previous Mormon proms, one Emerald Ridge prom and countless homecoming and other dances at Emerald Ridge, said she adheres to the same standards at both school and church functions.
“It’s always been kind of hard because I’ve had to put the extra effort in,” Webber said of the restrictions. “It’s harder to keep those standards ... but it’s not a burden. I want to be modest.”
Charissa Webber said her daughter’s always been confident in her choices.
“She’s learned to be in the world not of the world,” Charissa Webber said. “She’s never said she feels uncomfortable, but sometimes I wonder, ‘Does she?’”
A trying time, Webber said, came during her ninth grade dance at Stahl Junior High. It was just months before her 16th birthday, the age when Mormons are allowed to date, and Webber was forced to go dateless in a group of couples.
“It was hard. All my friends started (dating) in, like, sixth, seventh grade,” she said. “My birthday was only a few months away and I had to go alone. But I had fun anyway.”
Webber said she feels more comfortable at the Mormon prom, where she knows everyone understands her dilemmas and determination. They understand why she kicks off her shoes and runs to the dance floor during line dances such as “Cotton Eye Joe,” instead of participating in “freak dancing.”
“We try to play clean, appropriate music,” said Pierce College student Ryan Duda, a Mormon who deejays church dances, including the prom. “Everyone loves the line dances.”
After the dance, Webber said, her group may go out for ice cream or, depending on when they leave the dance, she may go straight home to meet her midnight curfew. She said she’ll do the same after Emerald Ridge’s prom, although she knows some of her peers have other plans.
“There are after-parties, there are people staying in hotels,” Webber said of her high school classmates. “It’s not my thing.”
Webber, who will attend Mormon church-owned Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah in the fall, is comfortable enough with herself and her faith to be comfortable at school and school dances. At the Mormon prom, however, it’s just easier for her to not “stand out.”
“It’s easier to not have to worry,” Webber said. “It’s not so focused on sexuality. It’s just about having fun, not having to worry about making out with your boyfriend or girlfriend.”