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The summer of 2018 may best be remembered as the summer of our Flamingo Prom, which was 100% inspired by Jim’s Flamingo Suit.

The day after losing his wallet, Jim went to Kohl’s to get a new one. Of course, I should have known that my favorite hunter/gatherer would find something else while shopping, but I didn’t expect to receive a text including this pic:

Let’s just forget for a second why the buyers at Kohl’s actually thought there was a market for these suits in Putnam County, NY. But Jim was quite taken with this “Flaminguy” suit from Opposuits for future kids’ performances.

Now Jim will be the first to tell you, “6 year olds are my people!”, so his buying this flamingo suit isn’t as crazy as bringing home magic beans. I know he’d wear it. But the craziest thing about this suit is that it actually fit him really well. For a big guy that’s 6’3, finding any suit that fits is not an easy feat. So it was hard to ignore that a little destiny thing might be going on.

So he texts the above pic of him in the suit, totally expecting me to tell him that he lost his mind. But the craziest thing happened instead. I texted back: “Wow! I kinda want a matching prom dress!”

Perhaps I was the one who was losing my mind…

Admittedly, even the staff at Kohl’s were confused as to why anyone would buy the suit, and I imagine, almost tried to talk him out of it (“Are you really going to wear this suit??”).

Obviously, they don’t know Jim.

While the salesman searched for the matching tie (yes, there is a matching tie!) that was missing, Jim then posted his dressing room pic on Facebook, and the comments were fast and furious. He hadn’t even left the store, and the suit was a hit.

Jim promptly purchased the flamingo suit without the missing tie, and the next day, even did a Facebook Live playing Jackson Brown’s “Somebody’s Baby” on guitar. His livestream video got lots of views, and I know that we’re on to something. The video was later removed by Facebook, but here’s a screenshot of the moment!

So back to my prom dress wish. Jim, my favorite online hunter/gatherer, texts me a pic of a flamingo dress from Lindy Bop in the UK. Similar to Jim’s suit the top of the dress is blue like the sky. The skirt has lots of hot pink flamingos, and some garden gnomes too!

OMG, it was perfect. On dress description page, there was also a hot pink petticoat featured, and my imagination really went wild. Next thing you know, I purchased the flamingo dress and  petticoat, and it was on its way to me!

I thought about the hot pink accessories that we both already had on hand: Jim’s top hat, my Daisy Rock electric guitar, a hairflower and high heels, which can only mean one thing: PHOTO SHOOT TIME! Jim ordered Converse hot pink high tops, and by the time my dress arrived we had just about everything. One trip to Claire’s for matching costume jewelry, and we were off to the races.

So last weekend, we ignored the heat advisory and took pics in our backyard. We even declined a spontaneous invite for a pool party to have our photo shoot. After working up a sweat in the first 10 minutes, I found myself asking aloud,“Whose idea was this???”, knowing darn well it was mine.  

PRO BLOGGER TIP: We used a digital video camera on a tripod to record us posing in front of the camera. We laid a blanket on the grass for our props, accessories, and guitars, and just moved quickly to switch between poses and props quickly. When Jim uploaded the video to Final Cut Pro, he was able to get high resolution screenshots that we could use as pics. As it was just the two of us, getting pics via video screenshots was efficient – and they came out great!

Fortunately, the heat made us work quickly, and we were able to accept the pool party invite after all. Here are some of our early fave pics. Our Flamingo Prom photo shoot was a success!