American culture is embraced the world over for its sense of youthful exuberance, even if the result can be a very slow pace into adulthood and the social responsibilities it might imply.
We love to hold onto the glory days of our youth, and who can blame us; they are such a sweet bubble in which to reside. Perhaps part of the reason we grow up so slowly here is that there are so few rites of passage.
Other cultures have ceremonies that run the gamut from being beautifully interesting, to the bizarre and sometimes even horrific.
Well, here in the USA we have the high school prom.
It comes after a long and drawn out exercise that starts in kindergarten and crawls ever so slowly through our 12th-grade, after which we finally have some tough choices to make concerning what the heck we plan to do with our lives.
The prom, while not for everyone, is a way of spending an evening trying to act grownup and have a blast at the same time. It is meant to be a golden memory, though many cannot remember much about the day after.
For some, however, it becomes a magical moment and memory with things about it worth holding onto.
One such person is Elena Puente of Los Alamitos. Back in 1993, Elena wanted a prom dress that would be unique, stylish and one of a kind. She decided to design her own prom dress that would be customized by her for her.
“I designed the dress and had a seamstress make it,” she said. “I don’t recall the cost.”
It was apparently priceless. Elena says it was “the perfect dress.”
Elena attended the prom that year at the Bonaventure Hotel with Ed Puente, her future husband.
They went to the prom together and are living happily and have raised their daughter Marissa, who is now a senior at Los Alamitos High School.
Marissa Puente has faced her own prom dress dilemma.
“She was looking for a dress similar to the one (pop singer) Rhianna wore at the Grammys for her senior prom,” Elena said.
Marissa discovered that such dresses just don’t grow on trees. She looked everywhere, but could not find what she was looking for. When her search came to an end, her mom suggested Marissa wear the same dress she wore to her prom.
“It was similar in style to what she wanted,” Elena said. “She looked beautiful and stunning in my dress,” said mom. “What a full circle and touching moment for the two of us and truly, the perfect dress.”
Marissa, who has volunteered at Los Alamitos Recreation every summer since her ninth-grade, and will be attending California State University, Long Beach in the fall, looked stunning as her date, Willie Villegas, of Seal Beach, arrived.
Their photograph and smiles at that magical moment seem to say it all.
We can only imagine what the future might bring for the dress.
