Business School Prom

Ben is busy studying for his last final of the semester and there are so many things to do before we wrap up for the holidays.

Last weekend we celebrated (almost) surviving a full semester at HBS with the annual Holidazzle dinner dance and school prom at the Westin in downtown Boston. The black-tie (optional but encouraged) event is held every year for the business school students (and partners). It was so fun to get dressed up for an evening and celebrate with so many new and dear friends.

We started with a seated dinner with 90 of Ben’s section mates (the first years are organized into sections of about 90 and they take all their classes with their section for the first year). It was fun for me to realize how many of them I know and feel connected to…when just a few months ago they were all strangers.

There were speeches, toasts, awards, and roastings, and I caught myself tearing up as they talked about all surviving this semester at Harvard together.

It has been a crazy one.

I’m not sure either of us realized just how many hours it would take between coursework and recruiting events. There were countless nights when Ben would get home from a recruiting event at 10:30 pm, and leave for campus 6.5 hours later to prep for cases. But, there isn’t any place we’d rather be and the best part of it has been the amazing people we’ve been surrounded with over the last few months.

After dinner and section things, we met up with some friends for pictures before heading in for some dancing + dessert in the main ballroom with all the students + partners.

It felt a bit like a grown-up prom, with people in more expensive dresses and drinking more than water.

We lasted ’till about 11:30 on the dance floor when there was a funny incident with Ben’s suit 😛

I’m so glad he misplaced his cuff links and switched out of his tux an hour before the event and put on this suit.

And on the topic of clothing, I wore this velvet wrap dress from Anthropologie and it was perfect! I had so many friends on instagram a few weeks ago help decide on dresses and you talked me into this one. It wasn’t quite as formal as the other options I was considering but it was a lower price point AND is something I’ll be able to wear a few more times this holiday season. The dress comes in a few different colors and is available here.

And, a lot more pictures of the business school prom event:

(note: I think this is the first time in a few years I’ve posted indoor/ nighttime / not-natural-light photos on the site — but I wanted to document the evening and share a bit more about life here at HBS…and I want to learn more about indoor photography because it is tough! )