The day before the Albert Lea High School prom, the Tribune featured twins Chelsea and Katelyn Anderson and what they experienced getting ready for the big event.

The twins each wrote summaries of highlights of the prom experience:

Chelsea

We started looking for dressing in March because my mom thought that any sooner would be too soon. But even though Katelyn and I told her we should start looking sooner rather than later, we went with her plan. We went to a lot of different stores.

I’m pretty sure that we went to every dress store in the Mall of America.

Katelyn found her dress really easily, but I’m super picky and couldn’t find one that I actually liked.

So when I found one at David’s Bridal, I thought that I would be done dress-shopping.

But after we ordered it and I tried it on, it was still too big, and it would be another $100 to alter it. I didn’t want to spend that much, so I went to look for another one.

I kind of picked the dress that I wore to prom out on a whim because I was running out of time before prom. My shoes were also not easy to find. I went to tons of different stores and I couldn’t find any shoes that would match the shade of my dress.

In total, I bought three different pairs of high heels but returned all of them because they didn’t look good. I finally found a pair the night before prom.

My funniest moment during the whole prom experience was when my grandpa was trying to help me pick out shoes but he kept showing me these really ugly shoes.

I got my hair done at Studio 22. Because it was my first time getting my hair done there, and I didn’t do the whole pre-prom hair like some of my friends had done, I was kind of nervous. I wasn’t too sure how it would turn out.

When it was done, I thought that my hair looked really good, and I’ll probably go there again next year.

Unlike most of my friends, my group didn’t go out of town for supper like other groups. My prom group just ate supper at my friend, Kyle Kriewall’s house. I thought all the food was really good and I thought it was easier than having to go out of town.

My favorite part of prom was the dance. All of the decorations were all really good and everything went really good with the theme of Las Vegas, and there was a lot of detail.

The dance was fun because you got to see everyone that you hadn’t seen yet because they were in a different prom group.

All in all, I thought that prom was really fun. But next year, I’m going to make sure that I start looking for a dress sooner and not be so picky.

Katelyn

My dress was a short one. It was a lime-green, strapless dress with three bows in the center. Although I was second-guessing the decision to not get a long dress while I was getting ready and during pictures, at the dance I lost all of those thoughts.

The short length was great for moving around and also kept me cool.

I loved my shoes. My favorite part of my prom attire was probably my shoes. They were charcoal-colored heels lined with beading down the front. The only bad thing was how my feet felt at the end of the night.

For jewelry, all I had was a pair of spiral earrings. It was plenty for me. My hot pink gerber daisy added a lot. I was very happy with how the flowers turned out.

My date, another couple and I went to three different punch parties. All of them consisted of colorful punch, tasty food and millions of pictures. We joined with another couple to drive to the Outback Steakhouse in Rochester. This was where we met the rest of our group for dinner. While we were all pretty dressed up, it was fun to eat at a more laid-back restaurant. It was extremely helpful that our waiter was so patient with our 22-person group.

The best part of prom was the dance by far. I was very happy with how the gym ended up looking. The DJ played many good songs and did a lot of cool things with the lights. It was so much fun to be all dressed up and dance with everyone!

The next day my group decided to just take it easy and relax. We drove to the Mankato mall to eat lunch, go to a movie and do a little shopping. We ended up seeing the movie “Fighting.” Some of us fell asleep during it because we were so tired.

The car ride home was a little sad because we realized prom was over.

All in all, prom was a blast.