Go Big Or Go Homecoming: Supersized Corsages
 

Whaaaaaaaat?

http://www.npr.org/blogs/pictureshow...sized-corsages

Ha yea... a little while ago, my bf, who grew up just outside of Dallas, told me about these and showed me some pictures. I was all WTF?! He said they can cost hundreds of dollars.

Crazy.

ETA: I just showed him the slideshow and I asked if he had to wear something similar to the guys here (pic 3)... he said, "Yea, except the ribbons were longer; by at least a few feet. They were F'ing annoying." LOL

woooooow

It's rare that something about high school life takes me by surprise, but I wasn't ready for this.

Back when the daughter was in high school they got ridiculously elaborate with long, long ribbons, but nothing you had to hang around your neck.
Never heard of them for guys, but why not?
I haven't seen one in years on the University of Alabama campus. Our Mortar Board honorary used to sell them.

Wow! My niece got similar corsages from her date when she was invited to Homecoming and Prom at her Texas HS, but if memory serves, the body of the corsage was about the size of the old fashioned mum football corsage and had tendrilly ribbons that hung down fairly long. I don't think it involved real flowers. I believe that the girls returned the favor and made them for their dates.

That mum is definitely not the norm. This is about normal size.

http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y63...ps0f133696.jpg

Those have always been popular in the South. I remember seeing picts of my cousin from her school dances in the 70s and always thought WTF!

The "models" look unhappy. and good grief one is standing on a roof! never saw this growing up in CA. huh.

As someone also from the west coast, I agree. I've never seen anything like this and where I live people would stare at you like you had a horn growing on your head if they saw you with one of these!

:eek::D:p;) ^^^^ yes indeed!

Well, that's certainly, uh, different.

Back in the day (1981), I had a TRIPLE MUM (real flowers:none of those fake mums) with a "W" for Waller, because I had to miss my Magnolia homecoming since my boyfriend was in the Waller band. Conveniently, I could flip the W to become a M. The triple was as large as they came then - I was quite the rock star for that one day.

This person makes duck tape homecoming mums.

I don't get it, so people (guys and girls alike) wear these to dances? Don't they get in the way or fall off?



Also, to anyone has bought one, how much would the average "mum" be?

A friend and I made these throughout high school for our sons' homecoming dates. We got together every Sunday afternoon for a month -- surrounded by ribbons, trinkets (whistles, bells, mini teddy bears, etc.), glitter letters spelling out their names (son and his date), feather boas, and anything else we could come up with to put on there! Not only do they wear them to the football game and dance, but they also wear them all day to classes! Don't even ask how much they cost -- we didn't keep track because our husbands would have killed us! :)

Well, since my HS didn't have HC since we were a Magnet school, I won't say NO school in Louisiana did this, but WE didn't. Thank God!

http://imgur.com/iptE2HG

DID I READ THAT RIGHT???

So what states is this done in? Texas, obviously, and Louisiana from AOII Angel's comment. I have never seen these in middle or east Tennessee or in Atlanta when I lived there.

The Florida Panhandle, circa 1999. I have a picture where the mums on my dress are as about as big as my hair. We didn't call them "mums" at the time, but now they do. Little teddy bears, raggedy Anns.

I knew this was about Texas before even clicking the link. I have friends with teenaged girls in the Houston area.

My bf said he's bought 2 for dates, and each was about $50-60. He said he went to Michaels and they put it together for him. You say what school (so they know the colors), and specify anything you want to add. They were pretty similar to the pic on the first page of this thread.

I guess any craft type place in Texas knows what these are and will make them for you.

Of course, people who go crazy with these things can spend a few hundred dollars. The ribbon is cheap, but the added extras can add up if you have enough of them.

And WestcoastWonder.. my bf put small teddy bears on each of the ones that he bought.

Munchkin, I wonder if some of the military from Texas imported this festive idea when they were stationed near your old stomping grounds. I have never heard it done in the Tallahassee area where I grew up or in SW Florida where I now live-or in Jacksonville when I lived there.

I had never heard of these until some former roommates (both from the DFW area) talked about them one day. They seem so odd to me!

Those are the most god awful looking things. What's the point of spending all that money on a beautiful dress only to cover it up with cheap ribbons and trinkets?

At my DFW area HS school, you had one flower for every year of school. I saw some when looking though old college yearbooks from the 50's and they wore smaller versions of mums to HC games. Guess it's a Texas thing.

Never seen anything like this in Ohio. It's ummmmm...it's a bit much for me...

Expect to spend at least $60, even for a homemade one.

No one in my group had a mega one (we called them singles, doubles, and triples), so you can see them all here.

Don't judge how 2007 me looks!

http://i39.tinypic.com/2labygn.jpg
http://i41.tinypic.com/vfyu54.jpg

Senior wear all white and Junior wear all maroon (school colors). My corsage was probably about 2 feet long. But, we only wear them on the Friday of Homecoming and we wear them to the football game as well.

The most OBNOXIOUS part about them, though, was the cowbells. Yes, cowbells. Also, the high school boosters had a mum/garter repair show set up in the cafeteria all day in case you got stuck on a door handle or something and you rip yours in half (me).

ETA: I went to high school in the DFW (Plano), FWIW.

I hate them. They are a huge distraction in the class. It has become absolutely ridiculous. It's went from something fun to a huge 'show-off' aspect (in my opinion). Some of the girls can barely stand up straight. But, then, I'm just a grumpy old teacher.

I see the mums everywhere, but this thread is the first time I've seen them for males (went to HS in central TX).

IIRC, they were only worn during certain parts of homecoming week (ex. if we had a pep rally after 5th period, they would be worn during 1-5th period, then taken off). I don't remember them being a huge distraction or being worn at odd times.

Yes, indeed. Our senior year masterpieces (in white and silver for seniors -- freshmen, sophomores and juniors used the school colors of black and red) included 6" teddy bears fastened to the flowers themselves. We even created clothes for the bears that resembled the marching band uniform (all the kids were in marching band). My son's date's mum was so heavy we had to fasten it around her neck with a sort of harness-thing. How they wear these things all day is beyond me -- but they do! And at my son's HS in a suburb of Dallas, when it comes to mums, it's "Go Big or Go Home."

My Texas nephew just posted this on his FB:

http://yestotexas.com/12-things-non-...mecoming-mums/

To answer one of the questions - at the dance, we had "mum check" rooms like a coat check room (which we certainly DON'T need in Texas in the fall) that volunteer moms staffed so girls could bring them to the dance if they wanted to. Mostly they are worn during the spirit day at school and at the game and then in pictures before the dance. I know in the Dallas suburbs they have MUM Stores like other places have Halloween stores that just pop up during "the season". You can easily spend $150-$200! However, our school band parents made them as a fundraiser and they were more like $60-$80. It's a fun tradition.

That must have been a really big room, to check those monstrous things.

In the late sixties in Houston, we wore double or triple mums that had about 3 ribbons for each flower and maybe a few small accessories like tiny cowbells would be on the ribbons. Maybe one flower would have 'RS' on it in pipe cleaners and the other would have the year. And we thought those were big!

They weren't, however, too cumbersome to dance with.

We also only wore ours the day of the Homecoming game, but we wore them from the start of the day until the end of the game.

I also went to high school in DFW and remember these obnoxious things well... teddy bears, cowbells, plastic whistles, you-name-it.

In my days (class of '91) mums went from double to triple, and also the first "over-the-shoulder" mums appeared. Yes, it was utterly obnoxious, but also somewhat of a rite of passage.

However, our insane mums had nothing on these "beauties."

http://i363.photobucket.com/albums/o...jpg-large.jpeg

Our mums weren't even CLOSE to that big, but did have the advantage of being made of real mums. The height of coolness was to have the florist deliver your mum to school. Then you got the added bonus of being called down to the office to pick it up.

Is it possible to go too over the top on this and be the girl that walks in and everyone looks at you like

http://mrwgifs.com/wp-content/upload...action-Gif.gif

They remind of me the scene in Time Bandits where they are doing the dance in Ancient Greece.