Y11 2025/26… come and join

@ECT22 I’m going back onto vinted.
In theory I can afford but it’s ridiculous and there are better things to spend £500 on. IMO. It’s so wasteful too. Wear once dresses.. we are a very mixed demographic city comp. I hate the thought of parents going into debt over a 2 hour prom

We got a prom dress on Vinted for £20 - brand is PepperMayo, which is pretty cheap anyway (£60-£70). It’s lovely. Can’t afford £100s, and wouldn’t feel right to spend that much anyway. The pressure is real though.

That was my issue with DS1. 6ft 2 with a 26 inch waist. We ended up having to hire one from Moss Bros after A LOT of running around.

My issue with DS2 is he's short, just as skinny but with massive swimmers shoulders but unlike his brother super fussy about what he wears.

I'm in a bother over DS's suit. He's too skinny for standard men's sizes and too tall for kids' sizes. I don't dare suggest he gets fitted for one, such is his antipathy to doing anything outside the house at the moment. I'm dragging him to a Macbeth workshop tomorrow using a mixture of bribery and putting my foot down.

I managed to get a cancellation appointment for the boutique where "everyone" goes. I asked for the price range and they said £265 to £550 😱 We are going to try styles more than anything, DD dithers for days to pick anything so i cant imagine her deciding on the day. I hope there wont be too much pressure. She's so excited to go and try some dresses on!

I have been warned that Stacees dont do returns.. and lots of the preloved site show that people are selling dresses they can’t return there. That plus endless huge dresses that were £500+, worn for 2 hours etc The after party is where they actually party & drink etc so the dress it ditched by then.
lots of them you would literally never wear again ever as so ‘prom’

Just been told school have decided to reschedule DS 7th exam this week as he is too tired. I am not surprised but sad it means they can’t be finished by Monday. It’s brutal without extra time once an extra 50% added along with rest breaks it gets close to impossible. Anyone who still thinks extra time is unfair for those who don’t get it should see the damage done for those who need it. The extra time is after all also needed to revise but I can not make 36 hours in a day.

I ordered a Next Suit for DS2 last night , word of warning that they do sell out well in advance of Prom season in the smaller sizes and safer colours . DS1 had to borrow off DH last year ! but DS2 is quite a bit shorter so I’ve had to get on it this year .

My 2 are equally not going for the enormous ones. More the sleek style. Some we saw in one shop were £650! For 1 night and there were lots of people choosing them. They were also discussing hair, fake tans, nails, shoes and handbags. Reckon those parents could be looking at £800.

we have one from stacees which is great. The other not. There returns process is non existence so be aware you may lose money if it’s not ok.

I feel your pain. DD's mock were on paper 2 last term and paper 1 this term, so she's never actually done a full set of mocks (Except for maths where they did all 3 papers both times). I'm dreading the real thing given how bad this was and it was only half of the curriculum!

I did think my goodness with twins the costs will be horrendous @Ifonlyoneday ! I made an appointment last night after reading your post, earliest appointment was 29th March! I do hope the cut off is not end of march as DD is barely 5ft tall so I'm pretty sure none of the dresses will fit. I totally agree @eurotravel - My DD's friend last year wore hers for about 2 hours and then got changed into jeans for the after party - Her mum was horrified!
My DD doesn't even like any of the ones she's seen online, she hates the over the top puffy, glittery ones and wants something classy but can't find a single one she actually likes, so this will be interesting...

All I know about a prom is that there will be one. We don’t even have the date, and DS has so far expressed no interest at all in it. We may even be away as we are all desperate for a break as DS will do GCSEs and then has a month until major surgery which we have to get in this summer. I am not sure if DS will change his mind on that but I doubt it.

So far DS has done 14 of his 18 papers for this round of mocks. 2 more today and 2 more on Monday. Can’t wait for them to be over to be honest. I guess it means most of the content for his courses has been revised again (not all of history, not all of English) but he has had a full set of papers for some other content heavy material. He’s done better tiredness wise this time but the amount of work is ridiculous. He did 2 assessments and 6 hours of decent revision one day!

So far we have a suit from Mango for £120 but DS is insistent he wants to wear a White t shirt with it rather than a shirt and tie, even a shirt with no tie is a no. I know he can wear what he wants and to be honest if this is the compromise needed for him to go then so be it but I can't help feeling he well be a bit under dressed.

Yes our prom costs are tolerable as boys buy a suit which then use in 6th form.

Stacees for prom dresses? Large variety of styles and colours and no where near £500. My dd has one for £150 and it’s beautiful.

We bought a dress online but dd now says she doesn’t like it so we’ve got an appointment at a shop tomorrow. She’s adamant she doesn’t want a big dress, more a sleek evening gown.

Mini mocks should be finished by middle of next week. Then teachers need to mark. I think we are getting the last school report with revised predicted grades and feedback on areas to focus on per subject before Easter. I assume the school is supplying it then so revision topics highlighted or exam technique problems can be practised or revised over Easter and into the run in.

We deliberately chose not to go on our normal holiday for Easter and instead were planning to do 2 day trips. Although DTs are saying they want/ need to “lock in” and can they not go anywhere.

Completely agree with you @eurotravel about the cost of these prom dresses for something only worn for a few hours and probably never worn again. Not everyone can afford these expenses.

sensible alternative solutions I have seen.

One charity shop in the largest town has some prom dresses they are selling.
DTs best friend managed to get one of vinted. There are/were loads on reselling sites. a good option if you can get decent measurement size of dress on these sites.
another school in the county (not ours) does a preloved event.

@Caddycat yes these shops will only sell one of each type and in our case 1 of each type in any colour. DT which doesn’t have a dress tried on only 2 in the shop she liked. First one fitted like a glove, she loved it. Then the shop realised they’d messed up and that was the only dress they had sold to their school! Arghh.
also we have been to two places. 1 said they couldn’t order in different sizes after end of Feb! the other said after March. Hope you get an appointment soon.

my plan was to get it all done and dusted by end of Feb so there was no having to try on dresses round trying to revise and my DTs do sports at weekend. At least one has a dress.

so far year 11 costs (local state comp)
2 x year 11 hoodies
2x year 11 yearbooks
2x year 11 school photos. 1 x year 11 whole school photo
2x prom tickets
1 x prom dress

the best of all this is they’re not even leaving as they’ve decided to stay on for 6th form 😂

back in my day you got your shirt signed for year 11. For end of sixth form there was a ball.

I’m vaguely horrified over prom dresses.
when did it become normal to have a £500 dress that they wear once?
Dresses that they’ll never wear again. Dresses that are all ‘American prom’ but you’d not be able to wear as a normal evening dress.
and yes shops that insist no one else could possibly have the same one.

DD is exhausted. She's only got Maths paper 3 to go on Monday. She had history today, which she was so worried about, so we got home and she was so ready to crash. I sent her to rest when her tutor messaged the link for tonight's biology session 🙇I'm going to take her to town for a nice treat this week end. I'm hoping I can convince her to have a more relaxed approach in the next couple of weeks.
Well done on the dress purchase @Ifonlyoneday I need to make an appointment asap as I'm worried all the shops seem to do the only 1 of a style per school thing!

I told DD to just chill till Easter hols only doing homework as been full on since November.
They have been told everything in the syllabus will be done by Easter. First week we have booked a UK cottage in middle of nowhere so DD can study with no distractions, after Easter Monday she is at school for study if like DS will he lots of small in class tests till GCSE exams start.

Good luck to everyone doing mocks

DS2 has been having a series of mini mocks in lessons - a couple more next week . He seems to be putting in a bit of effort and seems more grown up all of a sudden . I don’t expect him to shoot the lights out with his grades but I’m now more confident that it won’t be a blood bath 🤞

Mini mocks here this week (in class and not exam hall). Main mocks were in November.

actually not going great as they are just doing 5hrs of exams everyday which means they're too tired to revise and exhausted each day. Thankfully they did some revision before this week.

DTs and I are anticipating worse results meanwhile the school were hoping this would boost everyone by seeing them get better grades than main mocks and encourage them to revise for the final push.

cant wait for late June when this is all over.

in some good news we have a prom dress for one of my twins! 1 down and 1 to go.

More mocks start here tomorrow. Just maths and English.

We have more mocks coming up too