To ask how much you have/will spend on a prom dress?

[Frouby]

Dds prom is this year. Shes a good kid, works hard and I want to reward her for the effort she will no doubt put in for GCSEs.

Her prom is in July and she has started talking about her prom this summer. Says girls are spending between £300-£500 on dresses, plus hair, make up, nails, shoes, limo etc etc etc.

I didn't spend that much on my fucking wedding dress.

She has also said that they are all shopping for and buying them now ready for July.

I was thinking April/May, mooch round the shopping centre, party frock from Topshop or New Look, some shoes and some new make up,hair put up by normal hair dresser. Drop her off and pick her up myself.

When did it turn into a big £1000 do for 16 year olds? She won't even actually even be quite 16! What if you can't afford it? We live in Yorkshire, in a town massively struggling as it is. How can working class people already struggling afford this? Especially if they have more than 1 dc? In particular dds?

Is dd having my pants down on this or do people really spend 1k on prom night?

Can you hire a dress? I often hire evening gowns for work dos and a lot of hire places have prom dresses now. Realistically your DD will never wear it again.
We are high earners but I would absolutely not buy my DD a new prom dress or spend 100s on it. I am actually really shocked at the waste of it all.

Our friend’s daughter even had a hair and make-up rehearsal!

DD1 had her prom 6 years ago and her dress was £280 in the sale. Shoes were £70 and then hair, make up and nails was prob another £150. A friend of ours owns a high end car dealership so luckily didn't have to pay out for that as he loaned us a car and driver for the evening.

As Head of Yr 11 last year, I organised the prom for my lovely lot. Some girls spent stupid money on a dress, some bought from boohoo. Some bought from online Chinese retailers. They all tending to pool money for fancy transport or parents drove a car that has a bow on it. It was lovely, a real party, but no way would most kids have spent £500 on it. Sigh. I really blooming miss those kids.

Forgot to say she could hire a beautiful designer dress for £60-£80. Also lots of online prom hire and designer dress hire websites eg girl meets dress. You can also hire designer accessories like handbags.

Thankfully I have a good friend who is a professional dressmaker. She and DDs dress for £200 inc material costs. Shoes I think about £30, hair same, as was makeup. We did tan ourselves.
Hair thing/tiara was about £20ish so about 300-350 all in.

hire.girlmeetsdress.com/collections/prom-dresses

Both my DDs had dresses from www.sexyher.co.uk, as others have mentioned above. Ignore the name, they have some beautiful dresses & for my girls - one was £99 & the other was £79. Both looked beautiful & went to friends to do hair & make up before & one got the bus organised by school & the other I drove. No need to spend £££s.

My daughter goes to a girls school but they are still having a prom. Fortunately she thinks the whole thing is a waste of time and money so has decided she isn't going. I'm really pleased and of course relieved.

Why can't they do their own (or each others) hair and make up?

Limos are tacky. Why don't parents put an end to this nonsense?

Wow - £300 to £500 is masses of money for one night.

My dds both went to private school, so none of their classmates were exactly hard up, yet I don’t think anyone spent anything approaching that.

Dd1 spent £45 on her dress and £20 on her shoes - I think she got them from ASOS. She and her friends did hair and makeup themselves, and had a great time doing it.

Dd2 rewore a dress and shoes she’d worn to a cousin’s wedding two months earlier - I think they’d cost us about £80 together.

And we dropped off and collected our dds ourselves, as did all the parents. Not a limo in sight - it would have been seen as extremely tacky!

Tiara? Wtf??

I never had a prom, or even a leavers disco. We went down the park after our last day at school and hung out.

I have teenage DDs, I haven’t a clue of their school does a prom or a leaver event, nobody has mentioned anything about it but they aren’t leaving yet so who knows. I’ll ask them tomorrow.

The most expensive item of clothing I have ever bought for myself was £35 on a pair of jeans, I’ve never had my hair put up by a hairdresser or spent money on a tan of any type, you can bet if there is a leavers event my DDs won’t be spending much if anything!!

I am agog!

Try kpop .My niece got a £400 dress that had been worn once for £90.

Prom dress for DD1 - charity shop, approx £20, plus approx £30 - £40 for new bag and shoes
DD2 - approx £30 from ASOS plus approx £30 for shoes. Borrowed DD1's bag. Nails were a birthday present.
Both looked gorgeous.

Don't spend money you don't have.

My dd is a few years away from a formal but I know I would spend the money on an amazing dress for her. It would be for me though as I never had beautiful things growing up .

Look now as the sales will be good. I work in a posh school and some of my kids used asos and TKMaxx. Even Debenhams has an excellent sale. Thank goodness I have a boy....

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Have ordered two dresses from the Quiz sale for about £35/£40 each. Am hoping one of them will be right. No way are we spending hundreds of pounds - world’s gone mad. Dd1 is stunning so could carry off a bin bag tbf.

£25. She looked amazing 🤷🏻‍♀️

Just started the search with dd tonight. I’ve told her I’ll go up to £100 on a dress and she’s happy with that . She is lovely looking with a great hourglass figure so she’ll look good in anything.
So far we have a couple on order from ASOS, will look on eBay tomorrow.

£30 on a long dress from TK Maxx. Hair and makeup model's (or model's friend's!) own, done at friend's house in giggly group. Dropped off and picked up at nice hotel by friend's dad, in car bearing no notable resemblance to limo. Wonderful night had by all.

In your case I'd be tempted to have a quiet word with the school. It sounds as if the whole thing has got completely out of hand.

We got my daughters dress from Lipsy, bought in April for July prom £70. Her friend left it until June and there was nothing left in shops. She had spray tan £15, and hair and make up in local hairdresser £50. Sparkly sandals £10, bag one of mine. We dropped her off and collected. Some of her friends spent hundreds !

DD's dress was £65. She just doesn't wear dressy clothes ever so I wasn't going to spend £££££ on a dress that she was only going to wear once. She can't wear heels so she had a pair of lacy brogues from New Look that she never wore again - good job they weren't expensive. She had her hair done, isn't interested in having nails done and did her own make up. In fact the most money I spent was on a load of Benefit make up that she only used a couple of times as she very rarely wears make up.

The after prom party was in a field, so she got changed into jeans, trainers and a hoodie. They only stayed at the party for an hour

They organise limos for end of Y6 parties here!!

My DDs dress was £35 from ax Paris. Her shoes & bag were from Primark. She did her own nails, makeup etc so didn't spend much at all. She was happy.