High school and college are infinitely different. Parents are there one day and gone the next. Textbooks are rented from the library but bought for hundreds of dollars the next year. Prom happens in high school but formal takes over in college. Here's the ultimate breakdown of prom versus formal.
Dates
Prom: In high school, the "promposals" were so over-the-top and crazy. If you didn't get asked three months in advance, your stress levels skyrocketed. Your promposal probably included loudspeakers, balloons or singing. It was definitely captured by all your friends and posted on SnapChat for the whole school to see how *lucky* you were.
Formal: In college, your date is either set up by someone else, asked at the last minute or asked in a super casual way. Driving in the car and casually bringing up formal is about as crazy of a "formal proposal" as you're going to get.
Dresses
Prom: You've been scouring the internet looking for the perfect dress while also making sure none of your friends would have it. You probably dragged your mom around to 20 stores before choosing "the one." Also, this all happened five months before prom.
Formal: You're in college and your mom (and her credit card) are far away, so you settle for one of three options. You buy a cheap dress online or at Forever 21, you borrow a dress from a friend who wore it to a different formal or you wear a dress of yours that you haven't worn in at least five months and definitely not to a function that any fraternity members you'll be with were at. Those are your only options — choose one and go for it.
Venues
Prom: Prom was always at some fancy location (like pictured above). A museum, a famous landmark in your city or the fanciest hotel your school could afford. The food was amazing. The decorations fit with the theme and your teachers chaperoned the whole thing.
Formal: Formal venues are just like prom except the budget is probably half of your school's; it's at an overnight venue and it *probably* includes a waterpark. There are no chaperones. The "sober bros" only speak up if there's possible harm that could occur, but other than that, you're on your own.
Pictures
Prom: Prom was a family event. Your dad, mom, brother and sister cleared their schedules for the night of prom and all accompanied you to the location of the pictures (probably at a picturesque park or a landmark in your city). Your mom would have the official family camera while your sister was handed your phone and told to constantly update SnapChat and Instagram with pictures while live tweeting the event. Your dad and brother stood off to the side with other dads and kept eyeing up your date the whole time.
Formal: Formal pictures last at most for 15 minutes before you start to not care anymore. You wake up the next day and realize your camera roll has only a handful of pictures from the night before, half of which are blurry. You find the most appropriate one to send to your mom texting, "Had a great time at formal!" and then proceed to roll over and go back to bed.
The only thing thats the same...
The shirts. No matter if you go to prom or formal, you walk away with a killer shirt that basically spells out what an awesome time you had.
