The Mom Prom, which has its roots in Michigan, was founded in 2006 and has since spread to different states throughout the country as it grew in popularity with women’s groups—in 2012, more than 40 Mom Proms took place throughout the U.S.
This year, Saratoga Springs will host its very own Mom Prom, an idea that was sparked when the ladies of the “Saratoga Seven” were inspired after attending Schenectady’s Mom Prom last April.
“We were driving back from the event in the pouring rain, and one of us said, ‘We ought to do this in Saratoga!’ and all of us fools in the backseat said, ‘Oh yeah, that’s a great idea—let’s do it!’” said Gail Veitch, one of the event organizers, as she laughed at the memory. “So last May, we had our first planning meeting for the event and now here we are.”
Although the event is new for the Saratoga Springs area, the Mom Prom organizers have already seen success—the event already sold out of tickets six weeks ago, a feat which both Veitch and Saratoga Seven member Suzi Ingmire said they owe to Elizabeth Witbeck, who offered to design their website for them.
“Liz is a master—when they say webmaster, she really is one because we didn’t have any idea on what to do and we really relied on her,” Veitch said. “If it hadn’t been for her we wouldn’t have been this successful at this point. We sold out six weeks before the event and 90 percent of our sales were through PayPal on our site, so had it not been for the website we would not be sold out right now.”
Due to popular demand, the Mom Prom will have 164 attendees, 14 over their original cutoff point of 150 women.
“We had no idea [it would sell out],” Ingmire said. “We thought 150 would be a good starting number but we had no idea what to expect.”
“We probably could have gone to 250 people,” Veitch added. “We had so many people wanting tickets and not realizing they needed to get their tickets so early—usually people aren’t even thinking about buying their tickets for an event that’s six weeks away, so that was surprising to everyone.”
Veitch and Ingmire said the Mom Prom will be chock-full of tacky dresses and hairdos, contests, raffles, food, a cash bar and plenty of music from every genre—they’ll even play music from the 1940s for the women in their 80s and 90s.
“We’ll have a mix of all different music for everybody—our DJ has the ability to pull out just about any song you can name,” Veitch said. “We purposely make our dresses look tacky and try to make it as fun as we can—you see all kinds of things. There’s flip flops, bare feet, four-inch heels, crazy jewelry, crazy hairdos—you see a little bit of everything. You get into it and it’s just so much fun. It’s a laugh riot.”
Though it’s a ladies only event (“Not that we have anything against men—it’s just a ladies dancing, crazy kind of night!” Ingmire said), there will be life-size cardboard cutouts of male celebrities like Elvis, Patrick Swayze, and even Larry the Cable Guy.
In typical prom fashion, a prom queen will be decided on at the event in a three round elimination: walk, dance, and talk.
“First, they’ll have to do a walk where they walk around the dance floor so everyone can see them and we’ll weed out some at that point. Then they have to dance to a song the DJ picks out and we’ll weed out a little more in that round and then we’ll end up with three finalists who will have to answer the question of why they think they deserve to be prom queen,” Veitch explained. “We’ll have a panel of judges that will choose who wins, and the winner gets a tiara, a sash and flowers to wear that night along with a very nice gift basket, and she’ll get a free ticket to next year’s prom and her duties are to crown next year’s Mom Prom winner.”
There will be plenty of gift baskets, ranging in price from $400-$600 that will be raffled off at the event with the help of the prom’s major sponsors, including Saratoga Hospital, Advantage Press, Myrtle Street OBGYN, and the McGregor Links Country Club.
All of the money raised from the raffles will be donated to buying a medical massage chair for the Breast Health Center at Saratoga Hospital in Wilton.
“I think most of us probably go there or will go there for mammograms,” Ingmire said. “Breast cancer is something that affects every family nowadays—everybody knows somebody or has someone in their family or friends who have been affected by breast cancer, so we figured we would get a good outpouring of people for this event and we did.”
“We decided we would always choose a children’s or women’s recipient, so it all just came together as a perfect opportunity for us to help them,” Veitch added. “It can be very uncomfortable and nerve-wracking to be in that waiting room, especially if you’re waiting for a biopsy or test results. They try to have a waiting room that relaxes you and eases the tension of those uncomfortable experiences, so that’s really important.”
The Saratoga Mom Prom will take place at the McGregor Links Country Club Saturday, April 27 from 7–11 p.m. For more information on this year’s event or for updates on next year’s prom, visit www.saratogamomprom.com.
