Prom season opens early at McDonogh School, with the invitation taking on as much import as the first dance step.
One senior wrote a song, strummed his guitar and serenaded his girlfriend with a lyrical invitation to the event, set for Tuesday at Rams Head Live downtown.
"I strolled around the library singing to people," said senior Dennis Chen. "Then I just pulled up a chair and asked Emma."
That would be classmate Emma Warden, who accepted her singing beau's well-orchestrated "ask," the students' term for these traditional invitations.
"You have to get out of your comfort zone and be romantic, personal and upfront," he said.
Since the first 2011 asks started about two months ago, public displays of affectionate, often quirky invitations have adorned the Owings Mills campus. Huge signs and multicolored banners, most painted with "Prom?" and the prospective date's name, line fences and hang from buildings, lingering long after the answers are given. Hopefuls appeared in classrooms with flowers, candy, balloons and even a pinata.
A Garrison Forest student arrived with a cake, iced with the words of her prom invitation. With a teacher's permission, she delivered the dessert during class. He accepted, and the couple reportedly departed campus without sharing any slices with classmates.
In the past decade or so, elaborate, well-planned asks have become yet another tradition at a school steeped in 138 years of history. The practice has apparently not caught on at many other high schools in the area. At St. Paul's in Brooklandville, seniors reportedly send text invitations. At Friends School, one senior who was responsible for the daily roll call slipped in an invitation, received a positive reply and moved on to the rest of the names.
At McDonogh, the invitations nearly overshadow other pre-dance preparations and have become key to keeping the long-anticipated evening enchanting, the students said.
"I would feel slighted if I didn't get one," senior Paige Kennedy said. "I saw Dennis' song, and I thought 'Wow!'"
Her invitation from senior Alex Sidney arrived in a fortune cookie, printed on one side with the question and on the other with the couple's lucky numbers — all of which they have worn on sports uniforms. Just to be sure his request was not overlooked, he incorporated the message into several cookies and resealed with clear tape.
"Back in my day, it was hard enough to screw up the courage just to ask a girl," said David Harley, a history and economics teacher whose last prom was in the 1960s. "The pressure has increased extremely."
Many of this year's prom-goers can recall the more memorable asks from the past, like the roses dropped from the theater's catwalk into the lap of an unsuspecting invitee or the request painted onto tennis balls and installed in the fence facing the lacrosse field.
"You really want to make it hard for her to say 'no,'" said senior Jacob Taylor. "The whole prom event is over the top and this just adds to it."
The askers usually investigate ahead of time, hoping to ensure a positive outcome.
"It's really background checks to see who already has a date," Chen said.
Junior Tyler Meagher started with the driveway to his girlfriend's home and lined her route to school with signs that grew larger along the way. The last was a 30-footer, posted on McDonogh Road at the entrance to the school.
"I wasn't sure how many she would see," he said.
Perhaps the most visual invitation involved the construction of a 10-foot-high papier-mache duck and an accompanying video depicting the creator's thought process. Senior Josh Johns unveiled the piece, the first ask of this season, at a school assembly, much to the surprise of his girlfriend, a collector of rubber duckies. Prom announcements figured into the assembly, so it seemed the ideal venue, Johns said.
"I will definitely remember this ask," senior Madelyn Rubenstein said.
Classmates, mostly guys, told Johns that he set the bar too high.
"Half the school was impressed and the other half hated me," he said. "And it was split right down the gender line."
The library seems to be a favorite venue, but some have used classrooms and drawn teachers into the plot.
"It's a joyful thing," said Mel Bratz, a drama teacher who helped with the duck construction. "I like to be in on the surprise."
Mina Wender conceded 10 minutes of her math class for an a capella number performed by senior Matt Dalcin and a few friends, who had rehearsed a well-tuned invitation.
"These kids get really inventive," Wender said.
Junior Paul Ballas packed numerous boxes of many different sizes into one large crate. His date-to-be opened each from the largest to the smallest, which held the invitation.
"The worst thing you can be is unoriginal," he said.