This N.J. teen showed up to prom in hearse and got unloaded by pallbearers while she lay in a coffin. Here’s why..
VIA: For most high school students, a big prom entrance means showing up in a stretch limo or a classic car. But Megan Flaherty is not your usual high school student.
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“I like being different,” Flaherty, 17, said of her arrival at Pennsauken High School’s junior prom Saturday.
Lying in an open coffin, Flaherty was slid out of the back of a hearse in front of her stunned classmates. She stepped out of the prop coffin on the hand of her date, Stephen Caldwell, and headed into the prom with a big grin on her face.
Megan Flaherty poses at the Pennsauken High School junior prom with her date, Stephen Caldwell, while her family friend and funeral director Dennis McGee, who drove the hearse, looks on May 6, 2017.
Flaherty said the entrance was mostly about having fun, but it wasn’t totally out of the blue. She wants to be a funeral director after college, following in the footsteps of family friend Dennis McGee. He was the one who drove the hearse and slid the coffin out, wearing a tuxedo and top hat.
Her older brother also took the hearse to his prom, though he didn’t get out of a decorative coffin like she did. She decided to take it a step further.
“I made sure my prom date was OK with it,” she said.
She knew the moment would create some buzz at the prom, but she never expected photographs of her entrance would be shared widely on social media.
Many who shared them seemed to like the idea, and some joked that she was “drop dead gorgeous” or “fresh to death.” But others have criticized her decision, calling it insensitive and tasteless.
“Anything people do these days, people judge it,” she said. “People have opinions.”