Business School Prom

Ben is busy studying for his last final of the semester and I should be probably be cleaning or sleeping or actually ordering Christmas cards (we’re ordering from Mixbook this year and I have the main picture, I just have to choose the ones on the back and can’t decide).

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 it was so fun to get dressed up for an evening!

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 school prom, with people in more expensive dresses and drinking more than water.

We lasted ’till about 11:30 on the dance floor when Ben got low and split his suit pants all the way up to his belt loop (fun fact: did you know Ben’s a pretty great dancer?). I wish I would have gotten a proper picture ….there’s one of the pants off of his person floating around – I should go see if I can find it.

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.

My only qualm about the dress was that it plunges quite low in the front (you can wrap it tighter but inevitably after moving around in it for awhile, you’re back with the plunging neckline). I had a friend add a little snap closure on it so I didn’t have to worry about adjusting throughout the evening and it worked well.

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! )

^inside the section dinner

^HBS Section B (and partners – at HBS all significant others are called “partners” and we have the “partners club” and “partners events” etc).

^dinner was great (mostly anything I don’t cook or clean up is great these days)

^some very favorite people from this semester

^I sure do love him

^I sure do love him – and am so proud of how much work he’s put in these last few months!

^setting up for the photo – but I love how all these dresses just go together so well!

^beautiful LDSSA ladies – these girls have been such life + sanity savers these last few months (most of them are fellow mom partners who live within 2 minutes of our apartment)