Romantics propose to go all out for big night

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Imagine the quintessential pop-the-question scenario: A trail of Hershey's Kisses leads from her bedroom to her bathroom shower. A dozen red roses hang from the shower head.

But the attached note? "Now that I've kissed the ground you walk on and showered you with roses, will you ... go to prom with me?"

Teens are asking life's other big question in ways as elaborate, romantic or, yes, goofy as a marriage proposal. Custom M&M's stamped "Go2prom with me?" Scavenger hunts that lead to a surprise rendezvous with the asker. Personal ads in the local paper. A public address announcement made by a flight attendant during a spring-break trip.

On last season's Laguna Beach, the boys used gorilla costumes and "Prom?"-printed signs, rose petals, balloons and bouquets, as well as a Punk'd-inspired stunt involving a tow truck.

Teens are seeing TV shows such as Laguna Beach and The O.C. play up prom, says Kate Wood of online prom resource PromSpot.com. "Prom is sort of the one night every kid can live" the over-the-top Laguna life.

It's a generation of wired, of-the-moment teens doing something very concrete and utterly old-fashioned. But considering that proms increasingly resemble practice weddings -- the months of scouring for the right dress, the day devoted to hair and makeup -- the trend makes sense.

To many teens, prom is "the most important thing, second only to the day they get married," says Malcolm Bird of AOL Teens & Kids. A sweaty-palmed tete-a-tete by her locker or a quick phone call query "doesn't work. There's got to be a grand gesture."

But unlike most marriage proposals, girls are doing a lot of the asking, too.

Lindsey Pawlowski is the schemer behind those M&M's. "I'm a hopeless romantic," says Lindsey, 17, of suburban Chicago. So to pop the question for her prom this May, she not only spent $45 on the treats, but she also presented them to Greg Schiltz, her boyfriend, on a plate also piled with chocolate-dipped strawberries and truffles at a chocolate-themed cafe. His response? "I definitely can't turn this down."

Two years ago, Stephen Bent of Bellevue, Wash., summoned his inner Romeo "in the dorkiest possible fashion." He created a "Will you go to prom with me?" website for his then-girlfriend, Ella Kazavchinskaya, complete with "I love you"-printed wallpaper. Bent posted it onto his online journal so Kazavchinskaya would stumble across it.

She laughed. She was touched. She said yes.

"It was sweet," says Kazavchinskaya, now 20 and a college sophomore. "He was a geek in high school, but he was proud of it."

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