“Not to put you in the spotlight, but will you go to prom with me?”

When it comes to asking a potential date to prom, students usually stick with the cliche method of using a poster, but senior Cody Cai thought outside of the box when asking senior Kiki Shim. Both worked as editors-in -chief of the yearbook this year and cemented their friendship through long hours of work. 

On April 25, at around 7 p.m. Cai and a couple of his friends drove to Shim’s house. Meanwhile, Shim was busy getting distracted by senior Sanjina Verma at her house, who wouldn’t budge to leave. Feeling annoyed yet confused Shim received a phonecall from senior Evalyn Lee to come outside of her house. 

Shim stepped outside into the dark night, and in front of her were glowing letters that said four letters, P-R-O-M.   Not only were there glowing letters, but also yellow glowing balloons that lit up the the dark night. Cai held up a sign that read, “Not to put you in the spotlight, but will you go to prom with me?” Speechless, Shim took a while to register, and finally replied yes. 

“The funny thing was he had to repeat it a couple of times because I was so surprised, and he said ‘So the answer?’ and I said ‘Oh, OK, yes!’” Shim said.

Cai had a lot of planning to do before the asking, so everything was a little chaotic. Cai found some inexpensive LED white and yellow lanterns (these are the prom theme colors) from Michaels, for about $1 each, as well as a set of white and yellow LED illuminated balloons for about $5. Senior Abigail Lin helped Cai with the cardboard cutouts that spelled out “Prom.”

Although Cai had everything planned ahead of time, Cai and his senior friends Allison Kim, Abigail Lin, Lauren Chu, Derek Chao, Greg Yang, Samantha Cheng, and Amy Jan did not start the project until the night of the asking.

“Since I had to finish my final yearbook deadline that week, I was extremely busy and couldn't get to making it until the night of my asking in which my friends and I scrambled to put it all together,” said Cai.

Cai’s last minute put-together was not the only stressful part of the asking. The original plan was to ask Shim when she was on her way home from Spanish teacher Arnoldo Rodriguex’s Spanish video, but the video finished early and they had to find ways to stall Shim. 

“Sanjna gave me this really lame excuse [about] finding the janitor and walking around school, so I said ‘Can you just take me home please?’” Shim said. 

Verma eventually drove Shim home extremely slowly, then stalled her even more by saying she has to use the restroom at her house.

“The whole time I thought to myself, ‘What is going on?’” Shim said. 

Later, Shim’s friend, senior Evelyn Lee, called her and told her to go outside because Lee said she had some school work to give Shim. Shim then walked outside and saw all the balloons and lanterns.

“The funny thing is that I knew Cody was going to do it, but it still turned out to be a huge surprise,” Shim said. Cai ended up using total of 27 LED Lanterns, three posters, a bouquet of yellow and red flowers, 10 white and yellow LED glow-in-the-dark balloons and about 10 of his good friends to help him.

“Although it didn’t go as planned, she was still surprised and very happy. The whole experience was very rewarding,” Cai said.