Menlo seniors Amélie Diaz and Darcy Matsuda are making homemade boutonnieres for prom in an effort to help out Menlo students limit the cost of prom expenses. Photo courtesy of Amélie Diaz.

By Shelby Rende

With prom just around the corner, seniors Amélie Diaz and Darcy Matsuda have decided to make homemade boutonnieres for prom to help out their classmates. They came up with this idea when Diaz was too late to buy a boutonniere last year. Prom has been getting more expensive in recent years because of ticket prices increasing and more people getting their hair and makeup done. Because boutonnieres have the high price of up to thirty dollars, they decided to make them homemade in order to cut down the expensive price of prom.

“I made mine last year but only because I forgot to buy one and so that’s what gave us the idea because they are so easy to make.” Diaz said. They originally came up with the idea when they were at Matsuda’s house. “We were looking at the roses and the flowers and I was like we should make a boutonniere because it doesn’t seem that hard. So we were like oh, […] we can just make our boutonnieres together,” Matsuda added.

This year, they posted on a Facebook page to inform students of the sale. Shortly after posting, they got responses from around 30 students asking for boutonnieres. Although they originally advertised for boutonnieres, they have also made a few corsages. “We were planning on only doing boutonnieres but then some people were asking for corsages, so last weekend I tried making one and it worked out fairly well so we are doing nine maybe, but they take a lot longer so not that many.” Matsuda said.

They plan to make the boutonnieres and corsages on the day of prom in order to prevent the flowers from wilting or dying. “We haven’t actually made any yet or else they will go bad.” Diaz said.

Diaz and Matsuda plan to split up to hand out the boutonnieres and corsages at prom pre-parties. “There’s two or three pre-parties, I am going to one and Amelie is going to another one. So I am giving most people their boutonnieres at one pre-party. Then also Amelie is going to a girl pre-party and another one so she will give them out there,” Matsuda explained.