Well, we survived: Zombie Prom, that is. 🙂 Here are the highlights for all you undead aficionados.

Decorations and Food:

Our color scheme was red and black, so we decorated with streamers, balloons, and blood spattered banners throughout the meeting room. Our “A Night to Dismember” pennant banner was hung over the food table. We also created cardboard tombstones and surrounded them with severed Dollar Store limbs and moss we collected from outside.

For food, we offered two main options: severed finger cookies and undead cupcakes (that bled cherry sauce when bitten into). I may or may not have spent about six hours baking the aforementioned treats but, in the end, it was worth it. The teens loved them. We also had a ice brain mold floating in our “blood-filled” punch bowl. 🙂

 

Most importantly, we also had a teen Zombie book display, featuring novels by Carrie Ryan, Darren Shan, Jonathan Maberry, and other zombie-writing authors. As a library, we strive to promote literacy at all of our events.

 Photo Booth:

We wanted to provide a spot for our guys and ghouls to commemorate their eerie evening, so we hung some velvet curtains, a “Zombie Prom” pennant banner, and arranged some extra tombstones for a freaky photo-op.

Craft:

For our craft this year, we decided to keep it simple. We printed out 1-inch circular zombie images and the teens got to make bottle cap necklaces and key chains.

Costume Contest:

Just prior to showing Dance of the Dead, we had a costume contest. Each undead contestant strutted his or her stuff before our three judges. Each zombie was scored using a predesigned rubric. Our Zombie King and Queen each won a $25 Amazon gift card.

In total, we had thirty teens show up for prom this year – a whopping 67% increase over last year! 🙂 I’d say that’s bloody brilliant. Here’s to the zombies!