Teen Couldn’t Afford Dream Prom Dress — Her Date Teaches Himself To Sew And Makes It From Scratch

Mar 16, 2021

Who among us doesn't remember our prom? This milestone event in the life of high school students has remained a fixture for decades now and for good reason. Prom is one of the most exciting events of a student’s time in high school. From the fancy dresses to the lighting, the dancing to the feeling of love in the air, prom can feel just like stepping into a fairy tale! 

Proud parents reminisce about their own proms, flashing back to their glitzy outfits and what seem today like crazy hairstyles that gave them memories they could cherish for the rest of their lives. Kids nervously pose with their dates as they look forward to letting their hair down for one evening and have fun as their school event takes a dazzling turn and gives them opportunities to make beautiful memories of their own. 

However, for Addi Rust of Indiana, the future fairy tale was starting to feel more like a nightmare. With prom only months away, the Indiana student still didn’t have a dress and didn’t know what she was going to do about it.

That’s when her prom date stepped in to save the day in a way that she did not anticipate at all! In a move that feels like "Prince Charming To The Rescue-esque," Parker Smith went above and beyond to hand sew his date's dream prom dress as she could not afford to buy the one she wanted. This heartwarming story from 2019 is sure to make you smile and remember your own prom events with fondness.  

The magic of youth is always something that remains with us as the years go by, and for Addi Rust, her high school days are forever punctuated by a beautiful experience thanks to her best friend, Parker Smith. While prom is a very memorable event, everything that comes before it is also just as remarkable for many of us. Take dress shopping, for example. Can you picture the shopping trip, possibly even multiple trips, with your friends or mom until you found that perfect dress? Did you also spend a lot of time thinking about how the perfect dress can be accentuated with the right hair and makeup?

Rust was just as excited for everything prom-related coming up back in 2019 when she was a student at Pendleton Heights High School in Pendleton, Indiana. At the time, she was a senior and her best friend, Parker Smith, was a junior. The two of them were to be each other's date for the upcoming prom. 

Addi had found a dress that she loved but, on a fixed income, the possibility of purchasing it seemed very unlikely. Instead of getting irritable about her situation, Addi continued to have a good attitude and even joked with Smith that he should save her the trouble of dress shopping, as reported by the Toronto Sun. "Parker, why don’t you just make my prom dress!" Rust told Smith. At the time, Smith had never sewed anything in his life and he laughed along with his best friend, but he quickly realized that this was actually something he could do. 

While Addi had just been joking, Parker began to seriously consider her suggestion. Even though he did not have the necessary skills to create a dress, he wanted to make sure that his date had everything she wanted for her special night. FOX59 reports that he actually ended up telling Rust, "You know what, I think I could actually make your prom dress." This was a big promise to fulfill, but Smith set to work right away. 

He first made a sketch of the dress from scratch, and the design was entirely his own. The rest of the sewing process, Smith taught himself. He also received tips from his grandmother along the way. The dress was initially meant to be a surprise, but Smith realized early on that he would need to keep Rust in the loop so that he could figure out most of the details. He kept Rust updated every step of the way during his creative process. 

Smith also had to remake different parts of the dress a few times to make sure that the dress came out as perfectly as possible. “I’m such a perfectionist that I was up adding more stones to the dress even the night before prom,” Parker told FOX59. The finished dress was breathtaking; a blue ball gown that Rust could twirl in which also gave her a Cinderella-like feeling based on the captions on the photos that were uploaded onto Twitter. We must say, this friendship is one of a kind, and so is the beautiful dress that Smith was able to create! 

"I absolutely loved the dress," Rust told Metro UK. "I was with him throughout the whole process so it wasn’t a surprise." However, even though she knew what was to come, she did admit to FOX59 that she teared up when she first saw the dress. The whole process "grew our friendship more than ever throughout those couple of months. He brought it over the morning of prom and I cried," Rust said. 

About her best friend, Rust added, "I was so proud of him and so blessed to be able to call him my best friend. He’s so talented!" While the whole process started out as sort of a joke, the final result was not just a gorgeous dress but also a strengthening of a very special friendship. Smith also told Metro UK, "I’m grateful for the experience, not only because it opened up a new world of possibilities in design, but most importantly because I got to do something special for my best friend." 

After this project, Smith was already onto his next one. In 2019, he said that he intended to study costume design and musical theatre in college and that his dream would be to design costumes for Broadway shows. After making national headlines for his beautifully sewn dress, FOX59 reports that Smith actually landed a career opportunity later in 2019 to sew costumes for a Cinderella theater show. He created two looks, one of which is a unique peasant costume that seamlessly morphs into a princess dress. We certainly see big things in store for this talented young man! 

Watch the video so that you can see Parker’s skills for yourself and appreciate all that he did to make his date happy. What do you think of the dress that Parker designed? Leave your thoughts below, and then invite your friends to read about this story as well!