Prom Spending Reaches A High

Ah, prom...Prom 2k0, Prom 2k1, Prom 2k2....what a disaster, all of them. 

Nowadays, apparently kids are dropping anywhere from $500 to $1000 on prom - geez! Thinking back, I started to do the math....dress, $350...makeup + hair, $50...shoes $100.....bag $50.....and that's just for me, not counting the tickets, limo, tux rental, and dinner.

Well, not dinner for me my senior prom because I refused - REFUSED - to eat at a Benihana's. Gross, right? Smell lingered, y'all, regardless but I was on a hunger strike.  Sophomore prom - I can't even talk about the tackiness of the orange thai silk disaster I wore. My junior prom dress looked like it belonged on an Oscar golden girl (fully beaded gold, simple style with backless) and my senior prom dress looked like this, but with one shoulder and more beads:

Gotta love the South. My hair was sleek and simple, which set me apart immediately from the buckets of curls surrounding me. Always been a trend-setter, even in the category of tacky. 

We all got our dresses at a true pageant shop, where each dress and girl and school was carefully logged, lest there be any repeats. That is customer service!

If I was going to prom today and had about the same budget, I'd go with another pageant-style dress, because truthfully, when are you going to get to wear something like that again unless you're Miss USA? So my "dream" 2K12 prom dress would be:

{Vionnet, $5040, @ Net-a-porter}

And, on a limited budget for anyone in high school reading this, take a cue from my cute little cousin who "secretly" orders her dresses online from Asos, which is still foreign to her classmates. I'd (and she'd) probably go with something like this:

{BCBG, $288 @ Lord & Taylor}

{Jessica Simpson Collection, $209, @ Lord & Taylor}

Ah, Lord & Taylor, still the preferred place to get "special occasion dresses"!

Got any great prom stories or photos? I want to see!