To say the price of prom dresses is absolutely ridiculous?!!

[BLUEcups]

So DD is in year 11 and the school prom is coming up and so the pressure is on to buy a dress….. so I start having a look on line and the price of them is astronomical! WTF!

I see all over SM photos posted by bridal shops saying “She said yes to the dress” and giving you options to book your time slot to find it 😳

Then there is the links to hairdressers, make up artists and limousines! 😭 I mean it’s clearly a money making scheme but Jesus wept, in the current climate, it must be so difficult for some parents to be able to afford it.

The dress’s I seen either didn’t have prices on and the ones that did, were between £220-£500 and I was gobsmacked.

What a joke, especially considering the dress is unlikely to ever be worn again.

So my question is, what are your tips for finding a cheaper one? I can’t afford £250 plus the rest and I can’t be the only one.

My daughter had a post GCSE prom for her year group and she got a dress from Vinted for about £10 and some shoes for about the same price.

Other girls were spending loads, but there is no need to.

DS is getting a suit - will be an initial outlay but can be worn again for job interviews etc. A different shirt and tie can change the whole look.
It's a lot more pressure for girls definitely, but agree that there are cheaper ways (good suggestions already).

This whole thing has got completely out of hand! Limousines? Lord aboard.

Same here - I think it was about £50 and it was stunning!

Thanks all.

You’ve given me some great ideas and made me feel it’s ok to not be pressured to buy from a wedding shop a £300 dress. I explained to DD and she agrees

I'm quite relieved my daughter will want to wear a suit when her time comes.

I feel your pain! My daughter went to prom 10 years ago - we went to the prom dress shop with a maximum budget of £200 because of course she would use it again and of course it would be easy to sell online. Ended up spending £350 (shouldn't have taken my mother!) - she wore the dress for a total of 3 hours before changing into trackies and sweatshirt at her friends for a pizza as the prom was too boring. No of course she didn't wear it again and trying to sell it online has been a massive fail. It is a beautiful dress on and very unusual but SUCH a waste of money.

Having worked in secondary schools, there will be a mixture of £300 + dresses, £40-50 dresses from ASOS, £20 dresses from Shien and pre-loved dresses from Vinted or Ebay. The thing is on the day you genuinely can't tell the difference! They all just look stunning because they're young and lovely. No one is going to be inspecting the quality of the stitching on their dresses. Teenagers are so good at doing their hair and make-up now what with all the YouTube tutorials and products available, there are always girls who look like they've had a professional makeover but have actually done it themselves or a friend has done it for them.

Please consider being more ethical than flying dresses across the world from Chinese sweatshops.

I'm sure your daughter doesn't want a dress made by children!

Buy one second hand?

Definitely avoid bridal shops.

I'm in the US and my DDs bought their own dresses off the clearance rack at our local Macy's or from Asos. The most expensive was $50. They and their friends did their own hair and makeup. One after the other they wore the same gold sandals and used the same evening bag DD1 had used.

My dd found a vintage 90's dress on vinted for £18. We need to get it fitted with a seamstress but that won't cost too much. She was very against going to the usual shops and that isn't her style at all. There are lots of other options you know.

Ebay
Vinted

I’m selling a full length gold one on Vinted, type in prom dresses and filter for size/colour.

I have to say, all of Year 11 last year turned up in full on prom dresses, without exception. My current form tell me they’ve mostly bought theirs already!

You'll be relieved to hear that proms are an Irish tradition going back decades, so no existential fear is needed.

They are called debutante balls there, shortened to 'debs'. Entire communities come out to wish the school leavers a fab evening and to admire the style. Local papers publish pages of photos of the debutantes, boys and girls alike. Major national newspapers carry debs style and trends sections.

Charity shop. My daughters was £20 and it couldn't have fitted better if it had been made to measure

Second hand
Or look if there's anywhere local that hire out dresses (I did this once for a uni ball)
Bridal sample sales might have bridesmaid dresses that would do

Also just remember she doesn't have to have a fancy hair do or limo or all that nonsense!

For starters it's Y11, not age 11, and also, the prom idea isn't strictly American. It's a longstanding Irish tradition.

I burst out laughing when a local shop started advertising prom dresses last week. Their selling point is that they will not sell the same dress to anyone else at the same school 🙃 We definitely didn't take things this seriously when I was a teenager!

Vinted?
Are prom dresses a specific thing? How do they differ to other dresses? Bridesmaid dresses are a lot cheaper now than they were when I got married.

@BLUEcups www.ever-pretty.co.uk/products/elegant-sequin-spaghetti-strap-a-line-evening-dress-ee01952?currency=GBP&variant=45746721947835&utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=Google+Shopping&stkn=62b9577fe44d&gad_source=1&gclid=EAIaIQobChMItOmAi5PBiwMVs6VQBh3i8wgNEAQYBSABEgIvTfD_BwE

We have two local charities where I live that have special prom dress/outfit sales. All for under £30 and they make it a bit of an event with nibbles and nosecco and full length mirrors. I'll definitely be taking DD when its her turn.

Worth checking out if you have similar locally.

@BLUEcups just aswell if you type "evening dress" into search bar there is alot of pretty dresses in sale.. she could always sit down and have a look with you, their amazingly pretty just for 1 day/night of celebration 😊

Oh yeah this is what they do. Once a dress has been sold they won't sell the same dress or another dress in THE SAME COLOUR to anyone else in that school. It's bloody madness.

Dd got hers from jjs house and wore her platform doc boots underneath and was dropped off by her friends dad. The dress landed on the floor of her room at the end of the night and hasn't been worn since. Note to self stick it on vinted. I got into wire a panic listening to the other mothers then realised they were doing the whole shebang for themselves more than their daughters.

I used to get my “ball” and “black tie” dresses from Debenhams. I know they haven’t got the high street shops anymore but I believe still are online? May be worth a peep.

We spent £350 on DD2s. Plus an extra £90 to get it altered 🙈. We said we’d treat her as due to covid she didn’t get to do all the school trips abroad her sister did. Tbh it was an amazing dress. Probably the nicest one there.

dd1s was £120. It was a bridesmaids dress from wed2be (I think that’s what it was called). She got the whole trying on experience without spending loads of money. It was a lovely dress and she has worn it for formal occasions at uni, where as DD2s could only be worn for a prom or ball, so better value really. you definitely don’t have to spend mega bucks. Dd1 had a lot more spent on her in other ways.