How much did your 16yo spend on their prom dress?

[SpongebobNoPants]

I have no idea how much these dresses cost but we’ve been asked to pay £500 towards SD’s prom outfit which seems really excessive?
Her dress alone is £500

When DP expressed some surprise (and announce to be honest) at the cost he was told everyone spends that much?
Are we just old and out of the loop or is this excessive?

About 150, in 2014.
She did her own hair, nails and make up

£150 for one. Then £35 for another as it from TK Maxx. Used own shoes. Friends mum did hair. I did my own make up.

That's very excessive indeed. I wouldn't spend more than £150. Or you could borrow or hire one!

I think it really depends on what school your SD attends. If it's an expensive, prestigious independent then it might be the norm to spend £500 on a dress.

I spent about £120 on my graduation ball dress, which is a bigger event than a 16 year olds prom IMO. Kids and their parents are unbelievable sometimes

@mobear I’ve already said it’s an average state school in a working class area.

I went to a very prestigious private school (top 20 in the U.K.) and I’m only 34 and we had big lavish proms way before it was the norm. I had a £50 dress I got in topshop and had my hair done.., £100 max

@Gwraigynpoeni Me too! Pains me every time I see it. Was more than my wedding dress too!

DD’s was £60 because she had an off the peg dress in Quiz. She was unusual though. Most of her classmates spent between £200-400 at prom dress shops.

*AllTheUsernamesAreAlreadyTaken

Strangely, when I was a secondary school teacher, the girls who came from well off, middle class families would have a budget of about £60-£100. It was the poorer families who spent £300+*

What was your analysis of that information?

My DDs school has got rid of the prom and is doing an afternoon bbq in the school gardens. Dds dress cost £23 in the Asos sale and because of her thriftyness I treated her to a new pair of DMs to go with the dress which were £130. My DD goes to a selective grammar and no one would spend £500 on a dress - not even for the original more formal prom. For those of you considering spending ridiculous money on a frock, take a leaf out of Carrie Johnson's book and rent something swanky instead and put the change in your kids savings.

@Hoppinggreen

Dd wore a bin liner, shaved her head and went in a pair of her Dads shoes, she also wore a sandwich board with adverts for the local garage on who sponsored her so in fact we made a profit

Oh dear @Hoppinggreen - if you'd planned properly, you could have spun her shaven hair into a hair shirt, and avoided single-use plastic! [shakes head sadly]

@SpongebobNoPants Sorry I didn't read through all the comments! In that case, it doesn't seem reasonable at all.

@TotorosCatBus

My dd bought hers from Chi Chi London which is good for reasonably priced dresses

This is where my daughter has got hers from. It was £75 - I was curious what the quality would be like for the price but have been very impressed. We’re paying a seamstress to fit it properly and it will look fab. They only wear them for a few hours before getting changed for the after party. Proms just the bit sandwiched between the pre’s and after party which are the parts they care most about.

At my children’s school there is no culture of having fancy cars to arrive in or getting hair and make up done. Some girls have their nails done and a spray tan. The dresses are generally long, form fitting types as opposed to more typical flouncy ball dress types.

That's spot on @AllTheUsernamesAreAlreadyTaken

Sadly, it isn't the people who might comfortably have £500 in their bank account that feel it is sensible to spend £500 on one frock. This, if you think about it, is probably why they have money in their bank account.

Totally agree @TeenMinusTests

However, Whatever amount you and your dh think is an appropriate amount to spend, or not, the issue here is that you've been presented with a bill for something that you haven't agreed to.
Doesn't matter if it is a tenner or a thousand £, nobody should be spending someone else's money without their agreement.

2019 - £100 for everything including a Debenhams ‘bridesmaidy’ type dress, £20 in the sale and adorned with extra sparkle by DMIL. Our lovely church family also pooled together for a horse/carriage for all four girls who were in the youth church attending the same prom. Their faces were a picture.

Where I live, £300 or £400 is pretty average, I think. I wouldn't spend £500 on a dress but I don't think that's all that unusual. I think dresses should be cheaper this year though as obviously proms got cancelled last year and many dresses would have ended up in the sale.

@TotorosCatBus I’ve bought my bridesmaid dresses from ChiChi London!
They’re gorgeous! £400 for 5 dresses

£200-300 thirteen years ago. Entire outfit.

Dress = £40
Shoes = £20
Jewellery = Free - borrowed from older sister and mum
Hair & Make Up = Free - mum styled my hair, sister did my make up

This was about 15 years ago
Tbf a few girls in my class did make fun of me as my dress wasn’t a typical prom dress (it was a plain black sheath dress with a big bow on the front) whereas a lot of the ‘popular’ girls had big fancy park dresses with professional hair and make up. It made me laugh at the time because they went to all this effort just to impress each other (we were an all girls’ school and boys were banned from attending. They also hired limos to take them to school, but then had to transfer on to the school bus to get to the venue, as we had to go as a group:

That's a very expensive dress! I wouldn't pay that much personally

She did it in January for SD’s 16th birthday where she promised her £600 trainers and then expected us to pay £400 towards them last minute too

Did you pay up? Irrespective of what people expect to pay for a prom dress its not reasonable for one parent to spend a large sum unilaterally and demand most of the money from the other.

For the y11 prom I don't recall spending a great deal more for the girls than for the boys' evening dress hire. In each case there were a handful of ridiculously expensive outfits in their year but most o ranged from SH vintage dresses up to 150-200 max from high street stores or places like ASOS.

1998, £15 from C&A.

Approx £30 for dress, not full length. Think it was either New Look or Debenhams.

between my two who went to proms, they spend from homemade so about £50 for the fabric to £220 for a Tom Baker dress from the outlet shop. They are early 20s so not that long ago I would not have agreed to £500 for 1 dress

@Pedalpushers

In 2007 I wore an 18 pound dress from New Look that I already owned, my crush who had previously rejected me was all over me, I got drunk and ate 6 kit kats, all was good.

Brilliant prom story. LOVE the inclusion of the kitkats.