It has arrived. Cue the dreaded Prom date lunchroom conversations and impromptu Revolve online shopping trips. It seemed so long ago when people jokingly asked each other, the day after Winter Formal, about who they would take to Prom. However all of this chaos and hype over one night you probably won’t remember anyways, seems pointless.

As a future first-time Prom goer, it’s really easy to jump on the bandwagon of regular freak-outs. The dreaded division of friend groups into tables of 10 for dinner before the dance, asking a date that is of adequate height or finding the perfect dress can be considered March’s World War III. However, these little conflicts that are often the source of inter-prom group drama are trivial. Nobody really cares if they have the same dress as you, and you’ll probably end up posting a picture together anyway. If you don’t sit with your best friend during dinner, the world will not come to an end. And, nobody is going to chastise you if you are half an inch taller than your date.

Granted, Prom is stressful. There’s a specific mood that goes along with this spring dance, one that doesn’t accompany mixers, homecomings or Winter Formal. Maybe it’s the added “formal-ness” with the dinner provided or the long dresses. Whatever the source of the stress, it’s not supposed to dominate the entire night.

At Prom last year, I was lucky enough to be one of the sophomores taking photos of the junior and senior attendees. Obviously I didn’t wear a dress or eat dinner at the dance, but I got the gist of it all. It was comforting to not see any signs of the stress clearly shown during the weeks leading up to the dance. So if something doesn’t work out like you always imagined it would, relax. It’s not the end of the world. For all of the juniors, there’s always next year. And for all of the seniors, enjoy the moment because this is an experience you should never forget.